


The Trip to Thurskein

by ColdColdHeart



Series: The Key to Oslov [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts Aren't Sweethearts Forever, Class Differences, Family Angst, Family Drama, Forced Orgasm, Forced Prostitution, Friends With Benefits, Imprisonment, M/M, Original Slash, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Plot Twists, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, References to Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 15:59:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdColdHeart/pseuds/ColdColdHeart
Summary: Tilrey hasn’t been home since he was forced into sexual servitude to Upstarts at age eighteen. He doesn’t want to revisit his past, but when Gersha finds out that Tilrey’s mother is desperate to see him, he convinces Tilrey to make a visit home to Thurskein, the city of Laborers.And Dissidents get involved. This takes place about a year after the epilogue ofA Serviceable Boy.This will be a longer story with updates twice a week. My updates are alsoon Tumblr.





	1. The Letter

Gersha knew he wasn’t supposed to find the letter.

It was under an untidy stack of files on Tilrey’s normally tidy desk. If Gersha hadn’t really needed those aerial maps he’d asked Tilrey to print out for him yesterday, he wouldn’t have been rummaging there. But Tilrey was off fetching tea and listening to the other secretaries’ political gossip, which could take a while, and Gersha saw no harm in being proactive.

The letter had poor ink quality and several shaky handwritten additions. Gersha could almost imagine the ancient, portly desktop console that had produced it. He knew he shouldn’t read it, but once he saw the salutation, he couldn’t stop.

_My dear son,_

_It was kind of you to write me last spring. Believe me, I am appreciative, and aware you’re busy in your new posting. I’m so proud of you. Supervisor Fernei says he always knew you were bright enough to go far in Redda._

_I know this Councillor, your superior, requires your presence at all times. I have great respect for your duties and your dutifulness. But could you please convey to the honored Fir that your mother misses you greatly? And that she hasn’t laid eyes on you since you were abruptly taken from her eight years ago, without warning?_

_That’s a long time, Rishka. Even Upstarts have mothers, so perhaps your Councillor will understand._

_For my part, I understand why you might not want to visit, and how small and shabby our sector might well appear to you now. But I long to see you, Rishka, as does your school friend Magdalena. She and I talk about you often. For me, for her, if you could get even a few days to fly down and visit, it would mean the world._

_Your loving mother,_

_Angelika Lindtmerán_

Gersha sat down in Tilrey’s desk chair to reread the letter. Tears blurred his vision as he thought of his own mother, who’d succumbed to her sap addiction when he was barely out of University. Once she’d entered moral rehab, he’d only visited her twice, finding the place unendurably depressing, but now he would have traded his soul for a proper goodbye.

“Fir?” Tilrey deposited the tea tray on the desk, then stopped short as he registered the object of Gersha’s attention.

Gersha let the letter flutter onto the desk, the blood draining from his face as he asked, “How could you?”

Tilrey sighed. He poured a cup from the pot and held it out. “It’s a delicate situation, Fir.”

“ _Delicate_?” Gersha blinked the tears away. “It seems very simple to me. Your mother wants to see you, which she hasn’t since the day you left Thurskein. And you, for whatever reason, do _not_ want to see her. But instead of saying so, you blame the big, bad Fir who won’t allow you even a single visit home.”

He shook his head so hard the chair swiveled. “Well, that won’t do, love. You know it won’t. If you won’t write her a letter telling the truth, explaining this was your choice all along, then _I_ will.”

Tilrey didn’t look at him. “It’s hard to explain, love.”

“Well, yes. I imagine it is.” Gersha stood, sliding the chair with the force of his push, and began pacing the small antechamber. “But, as your mother pointed out, even Upstarts have mothers. I _had_ one. And I can tell you that if you insist on not reconciling with yours—whatever she’s done—you’ll regret it.”

“She hasn’t done anything.” Tilrey was frowning now. “I never said she did. She’s a model of Skeinsha rectitude who adored me.”

“She _still_ adores you, love.” Gersha snagged the letter and brandished it. “And I know this is none of my business—or wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t used my name—but _why_ , then? Why won’t you do the poor woman the small mercy of going home for a few days so she can see you’re healthy and well?”

Tilrey looked up, and for a moment Gersha felt singed by the glare of those blue eyes.

But all he said was “I never knew you were so sentimental, Fir. If you want me to go home for a visit, I will—in two ten-days, after the budget vote. I’ll reserve a spot on the shuttle and take three days and four nights. Is that satisfactory?”

Now Gersha wanted to go to Tilrey, fold him in his arms, and ardently beg his pardon for ever mentioning the subject. But the boy’s stern look told him this would be unwise. “I never ordered you to go to Thurskein,” he said in a small voice. “I only asked you to be honest with her.”

The light in Tilrey’s eyes remained dangerous. “You made your opinion clear.”

They barely spoke for the rest of the afternoon, taking their separate ways home—nothing unusual on a work-night. But, as Gersha ate a solitary dinner in his study, the need to apologize gripped him like a fever. He felt riven, desperate, as he rolled the conversation over in his brain and realized he’d been lecturing. What right did he have to lecture Tilrey about his relationship with his own mother?

At a quarter to eleven, when his eyes were bleary from screen-work, he emerged into the bedroom. Tilrey was reading, draped over the bed and naked under his robe.

Gersha sat gingerly down beside him, expecting to continue the argument. But Tilrey only set down his book, shrugged the robe off his shoulders, and said, “Take me, please.”

Tilrey had used sex to soothe Gersha’s bruised feelings before. It was something they’d had words about, because Gersha wanted every time they fucked to mean something, while Tilrey saw nothing wrong with sex being about comfort or play or release or nothing at all.

But this time, before Gersha could even open his mouth, Tilrey tossed him the lube and rolled over. “And yeah, I really do want this. I said please. How about now?”

Gersha’s objections died in his throat. Maybe fucking didn’t have to mean something every _single_ time, because verdant hells, Tilrey was irresistible when he offered himself this way, with his thighs spread and the warm half-light pooling on his skin.

He was beautifully responsive when Gersha prepared him, rutting back onto the slick fingers, his cock jutting between his legs. He raised himself on elbows and knees to assist Gersha’s entry, his powerful hips pushing backward with each thrust, and snarled, “Harder. Don’t be gentle. Make me feel it.”

So it was one of those nights. Sometimes Gersha minded this request; he _wanted_ to be gentle. But, remembering that damned letter that described him as a monster, he began thrusting ruthlessly, with all his strength. _Is this what his mother assumes about me? That I hurt him?_

Why shouldn’t she? Plenty of other Upstarts had hurt Tilrey—and that just sent a shiver of angry adrenaline through Gersha’s veins.

He pumped Tilrey’s cock with one hand and shoved the boy’s face into the pillow with the other, waiting for Tilrey to signal him to ease up. But Tilrey only moaned and pushed up harder against him, his cock straining in Gersha’s grasp.

When Gersha was almost there, he said, “Fucking come for me, boy,” the words gritted between his teeth, and felt the immediate, obedient gush of Tilrey’s orgasm against his hand as he reached his own warm release.

After that, they lay entwined for a while. His clothed limbs against Tilrey’s naked ones, their breathing falling into sync. Tilrey rolled over on his side and pulled Gersha against him, and Gersha pressed his lips to the flushed heat of Tilrey’s throat.

“I didn’t mean to give you an order—before, in the office,” he said at last, breathing the words into Tilrey’s ear. “But you know that.”

Tilrey sighed, running his hand lazily through Gersha’s hair. “Yeah, I know that. I just . . . reacted.”

“It’s your decision. I won’t even ask about it.”

Tilrey pulled Gersha’s face up to meet his. “And yet you can’t seem to stop talking about it. No, no, I get it,” he added, silencing the protest with a kiss. “And you’re right, love. Sooner or later, this needs to be done. I need to go home one last time.”


	2. The Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a reference to past non-con.
> 
> Pronunciation note ('cause for whatever reason I didn't just make Oslov names self-explanatory): Dartán is Dar-TANE. The á is always an "ay" sound, and so is "ei." Thurskein is "TUR-skane." Thanks for reading! :)

Someone was following Tilrey through the echoing underground passage from Ring Two to Ring One. The tickle between his shoulderblades was unmistakable. He turned swiftly, jogging the gym bag back on his shoulder, but saw only a handful of Laborers of various levels dawdling to various tasks, their eyes bored and bleary.

He was coming from one of his covert meetings with Ranek Egil, so perhaps he was just being paranoid. Still, it wouldn’t do for anyone to know where he’d been. He veered into the first side-corridor that presented itself, passing a tea kiosk and a boot-mending booth before he glanced sidelong over his shoulder.

“Rishka?”

One of the nondescript Laborers had detached himself from the crowd—a twig of a young man with a thatch of ashen hair and lashes nearly as pale, wearing a factory worker’s coverall.

“Excuse me?” Tilrey didn’t know any Reddan factory workers, unless this was one of Bror’s many relations.

The boy’s thin lips quirked in a smile that reminded Tilrey oddly of certain Councillors. “Guess you don’t remember me,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Irin Dartán.”

Dartán’s hand was uncallused in Tilrey’s grasp, which meant he probably wasn’t really a factory worker. Disguising your Level was a criminal offense; Tilrey stiffened. “I don’t remember you, no.”

Dartán didn’t look perturbed. “My aunt used to manage the officers’ mess in East Eight. I did odd jobs there for a while—you can imagine. But of course you were only there for one night, weren’t you?”

Tilrey felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. The phrase “officers’ mess” had freed memories he usually managed to bury deep in the permafrost of his mind; now they welled up thick and fast, making him queasy.

The officers’ mess was also a brothel. Very early in Tilrey’s time in Redda, Magistrate Linnett had sent him there for a night as punishment, saying that sometimes a proud or skittish boy needed to be “broken in” before he was proper material for sharing a Councillor’s bed. Sex-starved army officers, fresh from desolate postings in the Wastes, were adept at such things.

Had Dartán been there that night? Tilrey did his best to school his features into cold haughtiness, like an Upstart. “Indeed. I’m not even sure what you—”

“I showed you the ropes,” the young man said, looking none too abashed. “I wondered what the hell you were doing in that dump, a lad like you, but my aunt wouldn’t tell me. She just said to help you settle in.”

Gears clicked in Tilrey’s head. A pale little rat of a boy had shown him around the brothel and given him clothes to change into, talking a blue streak the whole time. _You’ll be fine. It’ll be a group of six or so. Serve them beer and then, you know, whatever. Let them get you drunk. A pretty boy like you, they’ll be nice ’long as you don’t make it hard for them._

He said, “I remember you, yeah. The day after, I was supposed to help you mop the floor or something, and you . . . you let me sleep.”

Not sleep, actually: he’d been curled in a fetal position. Dartán had coaxed him up and into the shower, then let him go back to bed, where he remained.

“That was kind of you,” Tilrey said now, the words sounding flat and inadequate to him. “I hope you weren’t punished for it. Are—are you still posted there?”

_Please tell me you’re not._ He couldn’t imagine eight years of that life, of servicing voracious officers at night and mopping floors in the morning. He knew he was looking at Dartán with pity, the kind of pity he despised, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Dartán smiled, a little coldly. “Thanks for the concern, but I haven’t worked there in quite a while. Can I buy you tea so we can reminisce?” Again that thin smile, indicating he knew Tilrey didn’t want to do anything of the kind. “The storeroom for my aunt’s business is just a few corridors away; we won’t be disturbed there.”

_Something’s wrong._ Tilrey shook his head. “I can’t, I’m afraid; I’m on my way back to my dorm to pack for a flight tomorrow.”

“A flight to Thurskein?” Dartán’s smile became a grin as Tilrey stood stock still, blood pounding in his temples.

“I’ve been watching you, you know,” Dartán went on, dropping his voice nearly to a whisper. “We seem to have friends in common. First that poor Celinda Valde, and now Ranek Egil.”

Celinda was well known all over the city as a traitor. Tilrey shook his head as if in confusion. “I knew Celinda a bit years ago— _may her last moment be bright_.” He made the old hand gesture Laborers still used to ward away the specter of death. “Fir Egil’s a friend of the Councillor I work for.”

“And you’ve just come from seeing him alone,” said Dartán, “in a way you wouldn’t want your Fir Councillor to know about.” He pointed briskly toward the passage behind them, as if growing bored of Tilrey’s evasions. “We shouldn’t be seen together. In five minutes, bring tea to the room marked 27Qe; knock four times. If you don’t, I talk to your Fir about Egil.”

And he darted back into the crowd.

Room 27Qe was indeed a storeroom, poorly lit and packed tight with barrels and canisters of what appeared to be grains and teas imported from Harbour. Tilrey wove a path among them, stopping to sneeze as flour snuck its way into his airway. “I’ve brought your fucking tea,” he called into the dimness, his temples pounding. “Now I suggest you explain yourself immediately. I’ve got powerful friends, as you apparently know.”

A croaking laugh led him to the far corner. Dartán sat there ensconced on a crate and using a second crate as a table or desk, piled high with file folders. A single flickering fluorescent turned the whole place into a warren of darting shadows.

“Put down that tea and sit.” Dartán gestured at a crate facing his setup. “It’s not much of an office, I know, but I try to stay mobile. And stop looking so grim—I’m not going to tattle to your precious Councillor. I’m well aware you’re important to our friend Egil. He’s the one who told me you were taking a jaunt to Thurskein, and I thought, well, maybe you can do me a favor at the same time.”

Tilrey set the tea on top of the folders and straightened up, towering over the seated Dartán. “Egil told you? You and he talk about me? Who _are_ you?”

“Dartán, Irin Andreas. Rinsha to my friends. R3, refectory second-class. I help run a kitchen for one of the big dorms—officially speaking.”

Dartán grinned again, with a flash of teeth. You could tell he’d worked in a brothel, Tilrey thought; he had the ingratiating manner down pat, but he gave it a twist that turned it into something wry and sinister.

“As for what I am less officially,” he went on, “I imagine you can guess. You know what your friend Celinda, _may her last moment be bright_ , was involved in. Won’t you take a seat?”

Tilrey shook his head. If Dartán was a Dissident, no wonder he was hiding out in dusty storerooms like a rat. He’d have words with Egil about sharing his private information with unsavory people, and soon.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Dartán picked up one of the steaming tumblers and quaffed it. “Nice. Yes. That’s basically your profession, isn’t it—serving tea? And yourself?”

“It _was_.” He’d reached the end of his patience. “This favor you want from me. What is it?”

“Simple, really.” This time when Dartán grinned, Tilrey could see the hole where he’d lost a front incisor. “Back in Thurskein, you have a friend named Magdalena Arno, correct?”

“She was my friend, yeah.” It tightened his chest to hear this man pronounce the name of Dal, his first love. “I haven’t seen her for eight years.”

“And Magdalena Arno has a good friend named Lourisa Beishoft.” Dartán picked up the tumbler, fished in the mess of papers, and brought out a sealed envelope. “I want you to bring this to Lourisa. No comment necessary; she’ll know where it came from.” He raised an admonitory finger. “But no peeking!”

The envelope felt smooth and dangerous as Tilrey pincered it between two fingers. “Don’t you realize I have to go through several security check-points between here and Thurskein? Where exactly do you expect me to hide this?”

Dartán shook his head, rocking with silent laughter. “You don’t hide it, you fool. If they search you—which I doubt they will—you simply say your precious Fir Councillor gave it to you to give to the Supervisor of your sector, unopened.”

“I don’t want to associate my Councillor with shirkers. He’s open to reforms, but that’s as far as it goes.” _And what am I open to?_ Egil had always claimed to shun groups that promoted actual violence or treason, yet Tilrey could easily imagine this man being involved in both.

“So you lie.” Dartán gulped his tea, choked, and began coughing. “Green hills and valleys, Bronn, you certainly have gotten high and mighty since I saw you last. It’s like you’ve forgotten you’re a Drudge.”

Tilrey pressed the sharp corner of the envelope to the pad of his thumb, remembering the similar way Celinda had mocked him. Did Dartán know that Celinda wasn’t actually dead, but had been spirited away to Harbour? Probably so.

“I haven’t forgotten what I am, no,” he said, tucking the envelope inside his coat. “Redda won’t let me. You did me a favor once, so I suppose I’ll do yours. But I don’t want to see you again.”

With that, he attempted to make a dramatic exit, which was thwarted—first by the room’s clutter, which had to be painstakingly navigated, and then by a knock from the other side of the door just as he reached it.

“Don’t answer that,” called Dartán. But Tilrey was already swinging the door open. Outside stood a drab-looking R2 girl. She skittered away from him, whispering breathily: “The true hearth never stops burning.”

“Tell it to him.” Tilrey cocked his head toward Dartán. Then he strode away down the hall, feeling the weight of the envelope in his coat, putting as much distance between himself and the Dissidents as he could.

***

Gersha was still in bed when Tilrey got up to prepare for his flight. He stretched out languidly in his warm nest, aching pleasantly from last night’s activities, and watched Tilrey return from the shower, drop his towel, and start dressing.

“You still haven’t answered my question from last night,” he said, remembering how Tilrey had distracted him by pushing him down on the bed and peeling his clothes off, his cock thrusting eagerly against Gersha’s thigh. Gersha could still feel that cock inside him, the pulsing urgency of it, and he wanted to think that urgency itself was the answer he sought, but it wasn’t. With Tilrey, sex was always more of a question.

The boy rubbed his damp hair with the towel. “No, love, I am not angry with you.”

Gersha sat up in bed and hugged his knees. “You’ve been refusing to talk about it. It’s not that you have to tell me _why_ you don’t want to go, but . . .”

Tilrey pulled on his trousers, the muscles of his back and thighs working fluidly. “Look,” he said, “you’re not the first to wonder. The very first year I was here in Redda, my mother sent me letter after letter. Fir Linnett kept asking why I didn’t write back, and finally he _ordered_ me to write her. I said I didn’t know what to say, and he said fine, he’d dictate something.”

Gersha’s breath caught. _That bastard Linnett . . . and I did the exact same thing. Told him to say what I wanted._

Tilrey picked up the clinging shirt and tugged it over his head. “So I let him do that. I wasn’t happy about it, but it just seemed easier.”

“I’m sorry.” Somehow Gersha’s sincerest apologies still came out ungracefully, as if he were trying to swallow them, but Tilrey seemed to understand.

The boy thrust an arm into his jerkin. “Don’t be. Like I said before, this trip had to happen sooner or later. I’ve put it off long enough.”

_But why?_ The question must have been palpable in the air between them, because a moment later Tilrey said, “This is hard to explain, love. But remember your own childhood for a moment—privileged, sheltered. Now imagine it was happier. No cruel uncle, no strife between your parents, no addiction.”

Gersha tried to imagine. He tried to place a happy childhood in Thurskein, a city of Laborers—a continuous, mud-ugly hive of dwellings and factories enclosed by an enormous wall. “It was that good? Your childhood?”

Tilrey sat down to pull on his indoor boots. “Well, it wasn’t perfect. My dad was dead, but I never knew him, so I didn’t miss him. My mom was lieutenant supervisor of our sector—which may not sound impressive to you, but it’s impressive in Thurskein. She wanted only the best for me, and she was buddies with the Supervisor, so we lived well. And you have to understand, with no Upstarts, we had no one to compare ourselves to _._ No one was ordering us around. We were at the top.

“And then I came here.” He rose abruptly. “And everything was different—summer and winter, night and day.”

Gersha nodded. He didn’t need Tilrey to explain how Redda was different for him, but something had piqued his curiosity. “That man your mother mentioned in her letter, Supervisor Fernei. Surely that’s not the same one who, uh—who sold you to an Upstart?”

Tilrey had turned to examine his packed bag, his back to Gersha. “Same guy, yeah. Supervisors are appointed by Redda, and they don’t have fixed terms. Often it’s a lifetime position.”

“But you said he was your mother’s friend.” And then it all seemed to make sense. “Are they _still_ friends? Is that why you’re angry at her?”

Instead of answering, Tilrey came over to the bed and held out something in his palm. A sleek black wafer: his handheld. “You keep this for now, Fir. If I get searched, I shouldn’t have it on me, and I won’t need to message you anyway.”

Gersha took the device, knowing how much it mattered to Tilrey to have it, remembering the hours he’d spent poring over it after Gersha gifted it to him. “I’ll keep it safe for you,” he promised.

And then, because apparently he couldn’t leave well enough alone, he added, “I’d be angry, too. But have you considered, Rishka, maybe your mother doesn’t know what her boss did to you? Maybe he lied?”

The weary look on Tilrey’s face told Gersha he’d already considered all the possibilities. “It’s possible,” he said. “Even likely. But Gersha, I’m not pissed at her. That’s not the issue. The issue is . . . I’m not her son anymore.”

For a few moments, all Gersha could do was breathe, fighting an impulse to stand up and go over and fold Tilrey into his arms. But Tilrey’s stance was rigid, forbidding. He was in the mood where he’d let Gersha hold him without relaxing into it, very subtly making it clear that touch at this moment was an imposition, a violation.

Gersha hadn’t spent years decoding his lover’s body language for nothing. He settled for saying, “Your mother—she’ll understand that you’re different now, love. She’ll expect it. You shouldn’t try to pretend you’re not. I’m sure she wants to see you just as you are.”

Tilrey stared at him with that flat blue gaze.

“I don’t even have the right accent, Gersha,” he said. “When she hears me talk, she’ll hear a Reddan—an Upstart. How the fuck do you get past that?”


	3. First Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out long! Language note: A Skeinsha is someone who lives in Thurskein, plural Skeinshaka.
> 
> I'm opening up comments, but moderating just for spam and such. Thanks for your patience while I figure this stuff out, and thanks for reading! <3

The flight took less than two hours, like a vacation jaunt to the Southern Range. It was a blink, so why had this journey always felt so impossible?

As the plane skimmed toward the landing strip, inside the security wall, Tilrey watched the enormous dirty-white hulk of Thurskein blot out the horizon. Roughly circular, the city complex consisted of a tall inner ring of housing—nine separate sectors, each with about 10,000 residents—surrounded by a boxy sprawl of factories and greenhouses.

Tilrey had no memories to compare with this arrival. Eight years ago, taking the trip in the other direction, he hadn’t watched the take-off. Handcuffed and jammed into a private plane beside the first Upstart he’d ever met, he’d been woozy with sap and dread.

What was that Upstart admin’s name? Tilrey couldn’t remember, but he could still see the shiny bald head and the delighted leer that spread over the man’s face as he said, “You’re exactly Linnett’s type, sweetheart. Do you know how lucky you are? An hour ago you were in detention. Now, if all goes well, you’re going to belong to the most powerful man in Oslov.”

Tilrey hadn’t felt lucky. Ripped from everything he knew, he had no concept of where he was headed except that it wasn’t a prison cell. That flight to Redda was his first flight, his first time being sapped. After a bout of nausea, he passed out, then snapped awake as they descended into Redda to find himself drooling on the leering admin’s shoulder.

So yeah, not much to compare.

He watched the runway approach and felt the landing’s impact shudder all the way to his bones. The plane taxied, and then he joined the quiet, orderly line of passengers filing through the hatch.

Most were Reddan Laborers like him. The flow was one-way: Reddans could come here, but Skeinshaka weren’t permitted to visit their relatives in the capital, barring extraordinary circumstances. Which meant a good number of these drably dressed teachers and nurses and clinic aides were upwardly mobile. Born in Thurskein, where their families still lived, they’d fought tooth and nail for precious postings in Redda.

Growing up, Tilrey had a few high-achieving friends who aspired to Redda postings, but the idea never attracted him. Why would he want to leave his mom, Dal, his world? Sure, you could live a little better in Redda, or so people said, but it was too cold there for skiing. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone in ’Skein was _starving_.

Once in Redda, he’d never let himself think hard about whether his new life was a net gain or loss.

Off the plane, he followed the other passengers through a series of corridors lit by windows in the hangar’s outer shell. Natural light was precious here and yellower than in Redda, bringing out the dirt and aging and wear in the ubiquitous white surfaces.

That seasonal light brought involuntary memories, too. _Someone else’s coat thrown over his shoulders. A soldier’s hand guiding him up a ramp._ Tilrey drew himself up and reminded himself he was a Sector worker wearing an R5 jerkin now, not a scared boy being dragged in an Upstart’s wake.

Soon enough the sunlight was gone, though, the corridors diving underground as they reached a checkpoint. Everyone had to state the reason for their visit, though they’d already done so back in Redda. A couple of Upstart passengers on government or scientific business simply scanned their hand-chips and were waved through.

The clerk who examined Tilrey’s ID cocked a brow at him, as if to say, _You work in the Sector? At your age?_ Then she droned, “Name of head of family in whose home you’ll be residing during your stay?”

“Lindtmerán, Angelika.”

She rifled through papers on a clipboard and made a checkmark. He tensed, waiting for her to ask him to step aside for a search, but she only said, “Go along, Fir Bronn.”

In Thurskein, every adult male was a Fir, every adult female a Fir’n, the honorific reclaiming its original meaning of “free citizen.” He’d have to get used to that again.

By the time he stepped into the arrival lounge, Tilrey was already feeling a little smothered by the windowless spaces. He’d have to get used to that, too, since Thurskein had absorbed him into its bowels and wouldn’t release him any time soon. With any luck, his mother still had her spacious apartment in the outer shell with a picture window in the living room—one of the perks of the lieutenant supervisor posting.

He turned, and there she was—slender, almost boyish, with close-cropped reddish hair, a freckled oval face, and an intense gaze. In her way, he realized now, she was a striking woman. Though there was nothing obviously imposing about her, people stepped out of her way.

When she saw him, her upper lip twitched, but she didn’t move. He had to go to her, drop his bag, and hold out his hand, not sure how she’d respond to anything more intimate.

“Mom.”

“Rishka.”

Then he was in her arms, her grip squeezing the air from his lungs. Seconds ticked by while he stood as still as he could, breathing in her familiar smell, trying to imagine he was still the small boy who’d felt steadied and reassured by her rare, fierce embraces.

_I’m not who you think I am. I’m sorry._

When they parted, she held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. “You’re so _big_. It’s like seeing a ghost. You were always his double, but now you’re grown. . . ”

Her face was bloodless and blank, as if she really were seeing a specter—his dead father, that stranger he’d never know.

Tilrey flashed the radiant grin he used when he needed someone to like him. “You always used to say that.”

Instead of smiling back, she gave a little start. “Your teeth are so white, Rishka.”

He’d forgotten how his nickname sounded in his mother’s voice and accent, with that burring, brushing softness. Only she used to use it, a pet name between them; his friends knew better than to call him anything but Tilrey. In Redda, all that had changed.

“I had them bleached a few times.” His sinuses throbbed, and he smoothed his face into blankness. “It’s . . . something Upstarts do. Not for a while, though.”

His mother looked bemused. “What a strange notion!”

“Yeah. Well, it wasn’t my idea.” And there he stopped, because he knew better than to talk about his life as a kettle boy.

Not that his mother didn’t know what he’d been doing in Redda. There were boys and girls using their bodies as currency in Thurskein, too.

Once when Tilrey was about twelve, waiting for his mother in the Supervisor’s foyer, three long-limbed youths came in and threw themselves down indolently on the couch. He stared at them—so big and strong and sure of themselves—until they offered to deal him into their card game. They joshed with him like older brothers, and he basked in the attention.

Then his mother returned. She grabbed Tilrey and steered him out into the hall, not dignifying his new friends with a glance. There she knelt and hissed in his ear, “Don’t ever talk to the lads you see in Fernei’s office. They’re not like you and your friends. They’re unfortunates who earn their keep on their backs in bed.”

When he objected that she wasn’t being fair, she said, “I don’t dislike those lads. I pity them. But you can’t get into the habit of socializing with people who don’t use their brains to advance in the world.”

Tilrey would do his duty on this visit; he would honor his mother. And he would rely on her pride to keep her from acknowledging that the past eight years of his life were a deep, personal affront to her.

They didn’t speak much as they took a lift up several stories to a middle tier of the city, then veered off into a labyrinth of corridors that echoed emptily. It was a district of factory sub-foremen and petty admins, everyone still hard at work.

His mother must be taking him on a detour to another lift; they’d always had their quarters on the top tier. He was about to ask her when they’d head upward again when she stopped beside an ordinary door and punched in a code. “Here we are.”

Tilrey swallowed his surprise; he had practice taking things in stride. The apartment inside was cramped and windowless—a living room, sleeping alcove, and kitchenette, little better than his dorm room in Redda.

His mother explained, “There’s no bedroom for you here, I’m afraid; I’ve reserved you one down the hall. You can take your meals with me; the communal bathroom’s just past the north bend.”

As if it hurt her to stop moving, she flitted into the kitchenette, opened a wall fridge, and pulled out a lush bunch of red-veined greenhouse chard. “Are you hungry, Rishka? How long since you had greens that didn’t come frozen?”

Tilrey had had an excellent preparation of braised chard and rice just recently at the Restaurant. He sat down at the rickety table, grateful to her for supplying a safe topic. “I’ve dreamed of your greens. What do you do to them? A touch of vinegar?”

“Cider vinegar, yes.” She paused, her sharp eyes on him, and he knew she was registering his Reddan accent, letting it sink in. But she said nothing.

He waited till they were both seated and eating—the greens came with rice and a very small nugget of steamed cod—to ask, “Are you still in the lieutenant supervisor posting, Mother? You didn’t say you weren’t, so I thought—”

“You’re wondering about my diminished circumstances.”

Green hells, she sounded as icily proud as a high Upstart. “A little,” Tilrey said. “If you’re still the lieutenant supe, how can you be at—what is this level, R2?”

His mother stiffened. “R2.4.” Her blue eyes caught his, then darted to the dead streaming cylinder in the corner. “After you . . . left, I told Supervisor Fernei I had no further interest in working under him. He persuaded me the sector needed my leadership. I had to concede his point. However, I requested that he lower me to a ration level where I would no longer have to socialize with him outside work hours.”

Tilrey drew in his breath. Had she really put herself in this dump for _his_ sake? “But in your letter, you said Fernei—well, you made it sound like you were still on good terms with him. You said he was proud of me.”

His mother rose, cleared the serving platter, and went into the kitchen. When she was irritated, she moved like a bird, awkward and self-contained at once.

“I wrote that because I knew your Fir Councillor would read my letter,” she said. “I supposed he’d be more apt to release you for a visit if you had powerful friends here.”

“You didn’t need to do that, you know.” Remembering Gersha’s reaction to her letter, Tilrey felt guilty all over again for not telling her more about “his Councillor.” He hadn’t lied, but he’d been vague, fostering a forbidding impression to keep her at a distance. “My Councillor isn’t a tyrant, and he doesn’t need that kind of persuasion. He understands why I’d want to come home.”

 _Then why didn’t you do it earlier?_ She didn’t need to say the words aloud. _Did you not want to?_

But Tilrey had no answers to those questions. After a moment, his mother picked up her train of thought as if he hadn’t intervened. “I speak with Fernei as little as I can get away with. He’s invited us both to dinner tomorrow night, but I won’t accept the invitation. You can on your own account, of course, if you like,” she added, those sharp eyes capturing his again. “I won’t be offended. But I don’t intend to dine with the man who—”

She broke off, letting the missing words resonate in the air again. _The man who sold my only child to Upstarts and sent him away from me forever._

“I’m sorry,” Tilrey said.

“What’s to be sorry for?” She spoke a little too loudly.

“I didn’t know any of that, Mom.” He heard his consonants and vowels beginning to slide toward softer Skeinsha sounds. “I assumed things here were . . . well, pretty much the same.”

***

His mother had taken today and the next day off to spend with him, and Tilrey was already wondering how he’d endure any more of these freighted silences.

All afternoon, she insisted on showing him around, giving him tours of the refurbished greenhouse, the expanded library, the rec area. He admired everything politely, pretending it didn’t look small and drab to him, and she didn’t ask him a single question about his life in Redda.

Not that he minded! The objective was to get through the visit with as few mentions of Upstarts, Redda, and particularly Gersha as possible. Yet he had to admit it was awkward having nothing to say to his own mother.

Now dinner was over, and she’d brought him to an upper observation deck to view the sunset. And that, too, was awkward, because he knew that, for her and the other people pressing their faces against the floor-length windows, watching a sunset wasn’t something you could do any damn evening. It was a reward you saved your work-hours for, a special outing.

Tilrey stared diligently at the horizon, but he was relieved when the last glowing coral strip disappeared and his mother turned away. “I thought we might take tea in the caf now,” she said. “Your friend Magdalena—Dal—wants to see you.”

“Dal? Is she here?” Tilrey’s heart leaped, an old conditioned response to the sound of Dal’s name.

“But,” he pointed out as she led him downstairs again, “you never liked Dal. Have you really been spending time with her, like you said in the letter, or was that another lie?”

“There were no _lies_ in my letter.” His mother stopped before twin frosted-plastic doors, which hissed open to reveal a depopulated cafeteria. “Fernei _has_ actually told me he’s proud of you—I just don’t care what he thinks. And yes, I’ve been seeing Dal. Why wouldn’t I? She’s your best friend.”

 _Was._ “But you always said her family was ‘disreputable.’”

“Shh! She’s—”

Tilrey turned just in time to register an approaching blur of black hair and gray coverall. Then Dal barreled into him and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him even tighter than his mother had. Her face barely reached his chest—had she always been so short?—but she made up for it in strength and solidity.

“Green hells, you’re a giant! How’d that happen?” She leaned back to gaze up at him, arching her expressive dark brows.

Dal wasn’t pretty or delicate—her face was all bold strokes like a slab of granite—but she’d always seemed more _present_ than anyone else Tilrey knew. Coming from his quiet, rule-bound home, he’d been mesmerized by her resonant contralto voice, her quarrelsome family, her theatrical gestures.

He couldn’t see her now the way he used to; the intoxication of teenage hormones was long gone. But Dal’s brown eyes showed none of his mother’s reservations, and he let himself linger in her embrace.

“You look like a stream star. Doesn’t he?” Dal turned to a companion Tilrey didn’t recognize, a plump young woman with a cloud of tight bronze curls and a wide, pleasant smile.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Dal broke free of him to nudge her friend forward. “This is Lourisa Beishoft, my—well, we’re partners.” She and Lourisa exchanged an unreadable glance. “She’s married to Kai Furnell—remember him?—but we two live together.”

 _Lourisa Beishoft._ A chill ran over Tilrey as he clasped the pleasant-looking young woman’s hand. As the intended recipient of Dartán’s message, she must be a Dissident, which meant Dal—

 _Shit_. Dal being involved with shirkers was no great surprise; she’d always been an avid breaker of rules great and small. But he’d hoped she’d have the sense to steer clear after seeing what had happened to him. They’d need to talk.

“Pleased to meet you.” He gave Lourisa one of his most glowing smiles. “You look like a level-headed sort. Has Dal convinced you to go off-trail and cross a frozen creek yet? Or to steal feast-day dumplings from the caf?”

Dal grimaced hammily, making Lourisa laugh. “You’re not supposed to tell her things like that, Tilrey! She doesn’t know about my wild past.”

“I’ve blown your cover, then?”

Lourisa giggled. “Dal told me you were shy with new people, so I’d have to be very sweet to you. But you don’t seem shy.”

“Maybe I’ve changed since Dal saw me last.”

Dal seized Tilrey’s hands, those big dark eyes scrutinizing his again. “Lisha thought maybe you’d be mad about us, or just weirded out. She wasn’t sure I should tell you I’m with someone. But it’s okay, isn’t it?”

Lisha—his mother’s nickname. Were she and Dal on such intimate terms? Tilrey glanced at his mother, but she was staring into her tea, no doubt mortified by Dal’s frankness.

“Why would I be mad, Mom?” he asked.

His mother looked up, her fine-boned face placid. “I’m not sure I phrased it that way. It was just, well—you used to talk about marriage, Rishka. The two of you.”

“I was seventeen, Mother.” He returned his gaze to Dal, who was so much easier to deal with, her whole posture speaking acceptance. “Anyway, I’m with someone now, too.”

“You are? You have to tell me everything!” Dal squeezed his hands, but then her face fell a little. Maybe she was trying to match what his mother must have told her—that Tilrey was under the thumb of a cruel Councillor—to what he was saying.

“I will.” He glanced his mother’s way again. _But not in front of her._

“Anyway,” Dal said, “you look amazingly sexy in that jerkin, and I’m probably going to leave Lourisa and run away with you, whether you have someone or not.”

Lourisa smiled indulgently. “If you desert me for him, I can’t entirely blame you, Dalsha.”

Her eyes met Tilrey’s for an instant, and he wondered if she knew he was the bringer of the message. _If_ he chose to deliver it. What real power did Irin Dartán have over him?

“My someone might have something to say about that,” he said.

***

“You have to tell us more,” Dal complained, several hours later. “You can’t be mysterious; it’s not fair when your life is so much more interesting than ours.”

She, Tilrey, and Lourisa were perched in a nest of rafters overlooking the vast Sector Six plastics fabrication workshop. It was late now, and the monstrous assembler robots were shut down for the night, the guardlights casting everything in amber dusk. This was where they’d come as schoolkids to dream and flirt and fight and taste forbidden rotgut liquor.

“My life’s not that interesting,” Tilrey said. “It’s just new to you.”

“But that’s the whole point, right?” Dal looked to Lourisa for support. “ _New_ is rarer here than smoked salmon.”

She was right. They’d already talked all about their postings: Lourisa was in Records (a useful place for a Dissident, Tilrey noted mentally), and Dal managed a freight plane maintenance crew. It hadn’t taken long to cover news of mutual friends: Pers was married with a kid; Vanya was running a whole greenhouse; Irina had been maimed in an assembly-line accident.

“So,” Dal persisted, “what about this someone of yours? Boy, girl, neither?”

“Boy.” He couldn’t be coy about it; what was the point? “He’s, uh, an Upstart, actually. The Councillor I work for—my mom’s told you about him, I imagine.”

In the half-light, Tilrey could see Dal’s face shutter itself. “But he’s . . . I mean, he’s not _just_ somebody you work for?”

“No.” He made himself meet first Lourisa’s mild, nonjudgmental eyes, then Dal’s more dubious ones. With them, maybe, he could be more open. “His name is Gersha, and I’m not just fucking him for work. That’s how it started, but that’s not how it is anymore.”

How or what _was_ it, though? Aside from “lover” or “protector” or maybe “partner,” there were no good words for what he and Gersha were to each other.

“So he doesn’t act like other Strutters?” Dal asked. “I mean, I’ve never actually met one up close, but they order you around, right? Do they treat you like your foreperson or Supervisor, only worse, because you can’t mouth off to them?”

Tilrey laughed; it hurt a little. “You’d mouth off to anybody, Dal. But yeah, that’s basically it. You’re supposed to show deference.”

“So do you do that with your Gersha?”

He hesitated; the proper answer was yes, but this was Dal. “Not really. I mean, in public, sure, but in private—well, he likes to act like we’re equal.” _Though of course we’re technically not._

“So he doesn’t believe in Levels?” It was the first time Lourisa’s voice had sounded tart.

“He does, but he doesn’t like all the formalities, the way some Strutters abuse their power.” The words sounded so dry and false, so unlike the Gersha he knew better than anyone.

Dal snorted. “One of those ‘enlightened’ ones. I read a novel about this Upstart who was so in love with a factory girl that he married her, even though it meant Lowering himself. Then his family shunned him, and his wife’s family thought he was crazy, and he died miserable and alone.” She swung her foot in midair. “Is that what your Strutter boyfriend’s going to do—give up everything for you?”

“Dalsha,” Lourisa said. “Don’t be rude.”

Tilrey’s throat had tightened. “I’d never let him do anything stupid for me.”

“It was only a joke. What—”

She went still, listening; someone was crawling noisily through the same hatch from which they’d come. Together they watched as a boy’s bulky head emerged into the rafters, hair copper in the light.

“Hey, Pers!” Dal called, and then to Tilrey, “I asked him to come if he could. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Tilrey!” Pers scrabbled perilously across the crossbeams, catching himself a few times, and clasped Tilrey’s hand. “I can’t fucking believe you’re back. You look amazing.”

“You, too.” Pers had gained weight in the face, chest, and around the middle, which suited him, Tilrey thought.

Through primary school and into their teens, he, Dal, and Pers had been an inseparable unit. Dal was the reckless one, Pers the reasonable one, Tilrey the shy, studious one whom they both protected—and sometimes, when they were in the mood, teased.

Then, one day when they were all fifteen, Dal had come to Tilrey and said, “Persha and I both like you— _that_ way. You have to choose between us.” When he stared at her, stunned, she added in her blunt way, “Now, don’t get all full of yourself, but you’re gorgeous. Everybody thinks so.”

Tilrey chose Dal, or the adolescent hormones did, and once they were a couple, Pers faded into the background. Now, though, the choice didn’t seem so obvious. Pers was a nice-looking heavy-set, auburn-haired boy, his dark eyes gleaming with intelligence. And he was the one acting shy tonight, following each glance at Tilrey with a fetching duck of his head.

“Pers’s posting is much fancier than ours,” Dal said, passing Tilrey the bottle of booze they’d been sharing. “He’s the deputy head of the constabulary.”

Meaning Pers probably reported to Supervisor Fernei on Dissident activity. Tilrey filed away the information. “You’ll be Supervisor one day, Persha.”

Pers did that head duck again. “Tilrey’s not impressed by our podunk Supervisors, Dal. He works with Councillors.”

“I don’t think he’s impressed by Councillors, either.” Dal winked at Tilrey. “They’re still just men, aren’t they?”

Ignoring the barb, Tilrey addressed Pers. “I can’t say I’m too impressed with Supervisor Fernei. The last time I saw him, he was lying to me.”

An awkward silence ensued. Dal said, “Fernei’s no better than a feudal tyrant. I always thought so.”

“He lets my mother live like a menial, and he had the nerve to invite me to dinner.” Tilrey turned to Lourisa. “You must work with him in Records. Tell me, have you seen him doing any shady business?”

Lourisa glanced at Pers, then said timidly, “Fernei does run quite a trade in . . . well, the usual stuff. Hosts Strutters on their way to the Southern Range, introduces them to pretty boys and girls, that kind of thing.”

“Every sector Supervisor does that,” Pers said.

“But he is what you’d call corrupt, then?” Tilrey liked the idea of having a focus for the white noise of anger he’d been hearing in his head ever since he hugged his mother, every time he closed his eyes. Fernei was the one who’d sold him, and a corrupt Supervisor could perhaps be removed, assuming someone who significantly outranked him had a good incentive to get rid of him.

Pers looked less and less comfortable with the conversation. “I barely work with Fernei’s office; everything _we_ do is by the book. Your mom’s the one to ask about him.”

“Oh, I brought him up.” Tilrey used the studiously breezy tone he’d heard Besha deploy to get fellow Councillors to open up. “But my mother—well, you know what a proud woman she is. She doesn’t want to talk about anything except the glorious amenities of Sector Six.”

The others exchanged glances, and then Pers handed Tilrey the bottle. “Fernei shouldn’t have lowered her ration level. That was a shit thing to do.”

Tilrey drank, but not much; the stuff tasted like paint thinner. He passed it to Lourisa. “Even if she asked him to?”

“Tilrey.” Dal leaned toward him across the drop, her eyes bright with liquor. “I know how your mom is, which means she probably hasn’t made this clear, but she _adores_ you. I mean, seriously, you’re her whole world. When she heard you’d been arrested, she went to Fernei and begged him on her knees to release you. And when he said you were gone, and then made excuses—well, she resigned. She worked the factory floor for a whole year, until he pretty much ordered her to come back and keep his office in order.”

Tilrey shivered at the thought of his mother on the factory floor, not surprised she hadn’t told him the whole story. But where was Dal going with this? He knew his mother adored him—or _had_ adored him.

“And after that, she kept petitioning for your re-posting back here, not that it ever mattered. That first year you were gone, she was so miserable she came to _me_. This woman who always hated my guts, who thought I wasn’t good enough for you—she came and asked me to talk about all the little things I knew about you. And then she cried.” Dal looked like she still didn’t quite believe it. “It got to be a regular thing with us, every week or so, the talking and the crying.”

 _Grieving together—as if I were dead._ Tilrey remembered all the letters from his mother he hadn’t answered. “Forgetting me would have made more sense,” he said, more bitterly than he meant to.

Dal stared at him in her dramatic way, but her voice was quiet. “Tilrey, you’re her only son.”

Yes, and like his mother, he was proud.

He held Dal’s gaze until Pers nudged him with an elbow and handed him the bottle. “Here you are, lad. Looks like you could use it.”

***

Pers was the one who ended up trashed. Tilrey had to guide him back through the hatch so he didn’t fall forty feet to the concrete floor.

By that time, Dal and Lourisa were both tipsy enough to start giving each other meaningful glances and touching each other and giggling. Tilrey got a steadying arm around Pers and said, “You two go along. I’ll get him home.”

“Are you sure?” Dal snagged the hood of Lourisa’s coverall and wrapped an arm around her waist.

He nodded. “You go. Have fun.”

Once they’d separated, back in a residential corridor, Tilrey stopped at a water station and made Pers drink. “Where do you live? Up, I’m guessing?”

Pers leaned on Tilrey, not ready to walk solo. “Nah, I can’ go home yet. Lina hates when I drink. We got a kid, you know? She’s almost two. You got a place?”

“Not a nice one.”

Pers hiccuped. “Don’ care.”

So Tilrey brought his friend to the cubby of a room his mother had secured for him. Most of the space was occupied by the bed, on which Pers collapsed with a happy sigh. “You got sap or anything?”

“Not legal to bring that here.”

“I know, but you’ve got plenty of sap in Redda, right? More’n you want, probably.” Pers toed off his shoes and drew up his feet. “You don’ even talk like us anymore. Sound like a Strutter.”

Tilrey leaned against the wall. “You’re drunk, Persha.”

“And you’re not. Used to be such a fucking lightweight.” Pers seized Tilrey’s hand and rubbed it against his own cheek. “It’s like you’re a different person.”

The contact was oddly sensual, but Tilrey gave no sign it affected him. After a moment, Pers released the hand and scrubbed his own over his eyes. “Shouldn’t’ve done that, sorry. Know you don’t want me, never did.”

Maybe it was just a side effect of his sordid history, but Tilrey found something way too attractive about men who apologized for their advances, who didn’t push themselves on him. He swallowed, remembering Gersha in their early days when he’d been deliciously skittish. “Maybe I’ve changed.”

Pers sat up, swaying a little, so they were face-to-face. “You jus’ saying that?”

Tilrey captured Pers’s hand and brought it to his own cheek. The contact with sweaty, trembling flesh sent a shiver of arousal down his spine. “I’ve got somebody at home, so it wouldn’t be, you know, serious. But it might be fun.”

He pushed away the thoughts of Gersha for now. Sex was just sex, and maybe Pers’s warm body would make him feel better about being in a cold, dingy room down a cold, dingy corridor from a mother who was still mourning a dead version of him.

He ventured a hand onto his friend’s thigh, just resting it there, and was rewarded with a needy groan.

“Green hells, I get hard just looking at you. But Tilrey, I haven’t—” Pers gasped sharply as Tilrey took hold of his cock, which was hard as promised.

“Haven’t what, sweetheart?” This was good. This felt good. Tilrey himself was only moderately aroused, but as he palmed Pers through his trousers, he felt fully in control of his life again.

“I haven’t—oh god, don’t stop that! Or maybe you should stop that.” Pers went crimson. “See, the thing is, I haven’t ever fucked a man. Or been fucked.”

Tilrey halted, amused now. “Really? Does your wife disapprove?”

“She says she doesn’t mind, but I feel guilty. Because _she_ doesn’t want to fuck anybody but me.” Pers looked up at Tilrey, his dark eyes damp. “And I do love her, like I’m supposed to, but I go to the lower levels sometimes to find a boy who’s willing to suck me off, because I _need_ it. Do you know what that’s like?”

Feeling decades older than his friend, and way too jaded, Tilrey closed his fingers around Pers’s cock again. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a good, meaningless fuck, Pers. And I’m happy to give it to you, but only if you’re sure.”

Pers groaned again. “You’d really—you’d do that? For me?”

Tilrey answered the question by moving into Pers’s space, threading fingers in his hair, and kissing him. Pers froze, then kissed back with almost comical abandon, pushing his tongue between Tilrey’s lips. When they opened to him, he sighed in wonder, his arms sneaking around Tilrey’s shoulders. “You’re so beautiful.”

They fooled around some more. Tilrey undressed Pers, teasing his cock with a knowing hand. Pers responded with mumbles of stunned gratitude, too off-kilter to try to reciprocate.

That was good, too; Tilrey would stay in control. When Pers began rutting up into his hand, he asked in his friend’s ear, one knee nudging between his legs, “Want to be on top, or shall I?”

Pers gasped as if the words alone might suffice to make him come. “I’ve always wanted—well, I’d love to be inside you. I guess that’s how I imagined it. But it’s your choice, and I don’t actually know how to—”

“No worries. I do.” Tilrey fumbled in his bag for the lube he’d packed for their last trip to the Southern Range. He was already anticipating Pers’s first awkward, eager thrusts.

Maybe he had a thing for sexual novices; Gersha had been painfully attractive at this stage, too. “I think you’re going to like this,” he said.

Pers clearly did like it, very much, though his alcohol-sodden body was somewhat lacking in stamina. Once he’d figured things out, he fucked for a minute or so like his life depended on it, then came and collapsed on top of Tilrey, wafting hot breath in his ear. “That was fucking amazing. Fucking. Amazing.”

The next sound he made was a wheezing snore, and Tilrey resigned himself to bearing his friend’s weight. When his arm went to sleep, he eased Pers off him and stretched out on his back, pulling the auburn head down on his shoulder.

Pers woke up. “Mmm. That was fucking amazing.”

“You said that.” Tilrey stroked his friend’s coarse hair, feeling oddly moored by the sensation of skin on skin. This might not be home anymore, but anywhere he went, he knew how to make people like him, knew how to make them want him to stay.

They spent the rest of the night alternating between sleep and further experiments, all of which made Pers moan and beg and praise Tilrey in gratifying ways. Toward dawn, after he’d shown Pers how it felt to have your cock sucked by someone who actually knew how, they rested in the tangled blankets, Tilrey’s head in Pers’s lap. And Tilrey said without thinking, “I need a fucking window. I’m suffocating.”

Pers’s thick fingers stroked his hair. “Lina and I don’t have a window yet. It’ll take three or four more promotions. The head constable’s got one, I think.”

 _How can you stand it?_ Tilrey swallowed his pity, realizing only now how lucky he’d been to grow up with a window, how lucky he was to look out windows daily.

“What does a constable even deal with here?” he asked. “Drunken brawls?”

“Yeah, mostly. A fair bit of smuggling and illicit trading.” Pers ticked off on his fingers. “Disorderly conduct. Some domestic violence, the occasional rape or murder. And shirking, of course. People who lie in bed and refuse to work.”

Tilrey wondered where those people ended up. Somehow as a kid he’d never thought to care. “What about the other kind of shirking—Dissidence?”

“Dissidence?” Pers said the word as if each syllable might poison him. “Well, I mean, it _used_ to be a problem, obviously.” He dropped his voice. “Back when you went and met with that _group_. But since the crackdown, the executions, we haven’t seen much of anything. Cut off the monster’s head, and it dies.” He drew a finger playfully across Tilrey’s throat. “Sector Six is a loyal sector.”

The last part was a formula, as if Pers were reporting to an Upstart admin. As if, on some half-conscious level, Pers thought Tilrey _was_ an Upstart. Tilrey digested that, enjoying the sensation of fingers playing with his hair.

“I’m not testing you or anything, Persha,” he said. “My Councillor doesn’t have direct jurisdiction in Thurskein. I was just curious.”

Pers’s finger traced his earlobe. “Well, you don’t want to mention shirking in front of Supervisor Fernei, I can tell you that. You’re not—I mean, I probably shouldn’t ask, but you don’t still have those sympathies, do you?”

His tone was earnest. Whatever Lourisa and probably Dal were doing with Dartán’s group, Pers didn’t know about it.

“I never had ‘those sympathies.’” Tilrey rolled off Pers’s lap and kissed him on the forehead. “Dal dared me to go to that meeting, and I did it to impress her, and I paid the price. And now . . . well.” He gazed into Pers’s eyes, knowing how innocent his own appeared. “I’m happy in Redda with my Councillor, Persha. Why would I do anything to endanger that?”


	4. First Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: family angst ahead. Well, it is the holidays. ;)

“Try to keep up, lad!” his mother called gaily from several lengths up the trail. “You used to outpace me by a half-kilometer!”

Tilrey hadn’t been nordic skiing in years. Redda was too cold for it, and when they went south, Gersha preferred walking. He swallowed his excuses and kept snowplowing up the hill, trying to enjoy the harsh blue sky and the sharp wind on his cheeks.

Apparently his mother still had outdoor privileges, or had wangled them specially for this occasion. They were skiing the track that circled the inside of the twenty-meter-high security wall, cut off from the horizon. But at least now he could feel the sun on his face and turn his back on the great gray lump of Thurskein.

He reached the top, his thighs burning, and she shook her head and said, “Don’t you use those muscles for anything? Your dad did this circuit in under an hour.”

Tilrey resisted the urge to tell her how he’d been using his muscles last night. His head was still cloudy from liquor and lack of sleep, but it’d been worth it to leave his mark on Pers—quite a few marks, actually. He no longer felt like a stranger here, and her little jabs didn’t bother him. “Dad had more practice,” he said. “I swim, mostly.”

His mother planted her poles in the snow and pointed. “Over there, beyond the far loop, you can just see the mountains.”

Tilrey peered obediently at a misty sliver of blue, trying to forget the up-close views of the Southern Range he had from Gersha’s vacation residence. “It’s good to be outdoors, get the blood pumping.”

“Isn’t it?” Her smile faded. “Rishka, are you all right?”

“Oh, I never get sick.” But her expression said she didn’t mean his physical health. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

His mother continued to squint at the horizon. “You just seem a little . . . uncomfortable with me. Constrained.”

“Oh really? Funny you should say that.”

“Meaning what?”

Instead of answering, Tilrey pushed off and glided down the long, gentle slope. Where the trail leveled off, he waited for his mother. She snow-plowed to an efficient stop and asked, “Are you suggesting I’m not being open with you?”

As they took the cut-away trail back toward the city, their skis slicing the hard-packed snow in unison, he said, “‘Constrained’ is the word I’d use.”

“Is there anything in particular I haven’t been frank about?”

_Everything._ He said, “It’s natural, I guess. To be constrained. But you weren’t with Dal.”

“Dal?”

“She says you sought her out after I left, talked with her. Cried.” An embarrassing thing to mention, because he’d only seen his mother really cry once or twice in his life, on the anniversary of his father’s accident.

But she didn’t seem troubled by the word. “Yes, we cried together. We comforted each other. Does that seem so strange? We _missed_ you.”

An implied accusation hung in the air like bait. Tilrey said, “But Dal doesn’t seem uncomfortable with me—now, I mean.” _And you do._

“Dal is an emotionally spontaneous young woman.” His mother strode evenly, lips pressed together. “At first I blamed her for leading you astray, into that . . . gang of criminals. But she admitted she’d made mistakes, let her youthful passion lead her.”

“Mistakes, eh?” He wondered if Dal really thought of her dabbling with Dissidence as a mistake, and how much she’d lied about it.

“She’s always candid; it’s one of the things I’ve come to appreciate about her. And I don’t think she ever stopped loving you.”

The emphasis she put on the last statement made him fall out of stride. “Lourisa might have something to say about that.”

“Lourisa has a husband, and children will follow. They enjoy each other’s company, and perhaps they’ll continue to do so, but Dal wants a family of her own. If you wanted to start one with her, I doubt she’d say no.”

“If I _what_?” Tilrey’s cheeks had gone hot; apparently his mother still had the power to fluster him. “You don’t seriously think I’m going to marry Dal? And come back here?”

Her eyes skated across him, blue and cold. “And would coming back here be such an awful fate?”

“I didn’t say that!” They were approaching the mouth of the tunnel that led back into the city, a concrete maw that had made him shiver with the sensation of being smothered.

“Did you need to?” His mother’s voice was short, sharp, efficient as her strokes. “Tilrey, I don’t know what this Councillor’s promised you. I don’t know what you think you are to him. But I beg you to remember there’s a chasm between you, and whatever he may say or feel now isn’t necessarily what he’ll keep feeling.”

The picture she was painting was so absurd, and so similar to the one Dal had painted, that Tilrey laughed. “How do you know my Fir’s promised me anything? What makes you think I’m so innocent and naïve? Maybe _I’m_ using _him_.”

“I know you, Rishka.” She spoke low, as if telling a secret. “And that wouldn’t be like you.”

“Oh, wouldn’t it?” Was he trying to persuade himself? Gersha had been the first to fall in love, the first to use the word. The attachment _had_ worked to Tilrey’s advantage, and if he felt a reciprocal one, well, he hadn’t let it cloud his judgment, had he?

“Then maybe you don’t know me after all. This might amaze you,” he went on, out of breath, “but I have _power_ in Redda. Not legitimate or official, but I can influence things, things that might even benefit people here. Why would I give that up?”

They’d reached the tunnel, where an attendant waited to take their skis back to the storeroom. His mother jabbed her binding with the pole to release it, still the picture of athletic grace.

“It appears you’ve chosen your path,” she said. “I only ask you to consider that Dal won’t wait forever.”

“She’s not fucking waiting _now_.” Tilrey practically tore his skis off. “Look, Mom, she’s happy. She’s moved on. And I—well, I’m okay, which is a hell of a lot better than I was. Maybe I’ll want a family someday, maybe not, but there’s no evil Strutter making my choices for me. Fir Gádden is one of the few Upstarts who ever gave a damn that I have a brain in my head. He’s my best friend and my lover, and yeah, I do care about him, even if he’s so cussedly proud and uptight he reminds me of _you_ sometimes. Got that?”

He stopped short as he realized he was practically shouting. The attendant’s bored scowl had become an intrigued stare. His mother bundled up their equipment, averting her eyes.

Tilrey ducked in to relieve her of the burden. “I’m sorry,” he said under his breath.

She didn’t look at him. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

They changed their boots and stepped onto the creaky, endless moving walkway that would return them to the heart of Sector Six. Dark except for periodic streaks of fluorescence, the tunnel smelled to Tilrey like sweat, toil, despair. Yet he’d loved taking this ride as a child, associating that same musty scent with freedom and the outdoors.

What was wrong with him that he couldn’t even imagine staying in ’Skein? But if he couldn’t give his mother what she apparently wanted—him—maybe he could give her something else.

“You shouldn’t be living the way you are, Mother,” he said. “Not with everything you do for this sector—and certainly not for my sake.”

From the dark beside him came a small, derisive sound. “If you can choose to live among Strutters and let them pull your strings, I can choose my ration level.”

“I told you, nobody’s pulling my—”

He broke off, his throat tight, as a chiming alert sounded. His mother pulled out a glowing disc, still moving with that infuriating calm she was so good at, and read something on its surface.

“Fernei. Reiterating the dinner invitation that I have already declined. And there’s something for you—a call from Redda. Your Upstart, I suppose. You’ll need to take that in the connection cubicle on level five.”

The way she said “your Upstart” made Tilrey bristle again. But a semicircle of light had appeared ahead, which meant he wouldn’t have to endure the freezing aura of her disapproval much longer.

“Good,” he said, “I’ll go up and take that now. And Mother? You can tell the Supervisor _I’m_ accepting his invitation for tonight. He and I have unfinished business.”

***

Each sector had just two connection cubicles where the inhabitants could take calls from Redda or the other sectors. Waiting outside the closet-sized space for an old woman to finish her animated conversation with a trio of grandchildren, Tilrey sorely missed the handheld he’d left behind, the ability to communicate instantaneously with Gersha.

When the old woman finally vacated the cubicle, he took her place, tugged the transparent panel closed, and entered the connection code the attendant had given him. After twenty seconds of static, Gersha appeared on the dingy screen.

He was at his desk in the Sector, wearing his white robe of office and munching on the fish crackers that he liked and Tilrey found disgusting. The sight of him was so familiar and strange at once that Tilrey couldn’t speak, a lump rising in his throat. How long since they’d been apart?

Gersha didn’t seem to know what to say either. “I know it’s barely been a day,” he started sheepishly. “I just wanted to be sure you’d landed safely.”

“As you can see, Fir.” Tilrey glanced at the heavy-jowled man who was next in line to use the terminal. “I miss you,” he added before he could stop himself.

Gersha cleared his throat. “And I you.”

“You’re blushing, Fir. Even with the quality of this connection, I can see that.”

The Councillor dropped his eyes, beautifully bashful as always. “And how is your, uh, your Fir’n mother?”

“Oh, well enough. She just wants me to move back here and marry my childhood sweetheart.”

Gersha appeared to choke on his cracker. “Really?”

“Yes. I’m seriously considering it.” Tilrey held his earnest look just long enough to see Gersha’s face freeze, then cracked a grin. “Sorry. That wasn’t funny, was it?”

“No,” Gersha said softly.

“No. This place is doing things to me.” The heavy-jowled man was tapping his foot now. “There aren’t enough damn windows. Anyway, I should go, but can you do something for me, love? Can you ask somebody with jurisdiction here, like Niko Karishkov, just what it would take to depose and replace a Supervisor?” He whispered the last word.

Gersha didn’t look surprised by the request. “I will, yes. He should be at the gym tonight. Do you think you might—” dropping his voice in turn— “have some leverage against the bastard?”

Tilrey glanced instinctively around for surveillance cams. The cubicle appeared clear, but that meant nothing. “Maybe. Anyway, I plan to do some fact finding tonight.”

Gersha’s eyes glittered; he always liked it when they were in the thick of a new scheme. “I’m happy to help any way I can. Soon, then?”

Tilrey touched one finger to the screen. Part of him wanted to go right ahead and say _I love you_ , in defiance of Dal’s and his mother’s and everyone else’s disapproval, but this was a public place. “Soon.”

He stepped out of the cubicle to find several pairs of curious eyes on him. “Pretty close with your boss, eh?” said the heavy-jowled man with an intent look that could be envy. “I work in the Sector, too, but mine don’t even notice me except to load me up with overtime.”

Tilrey decided he didn’t give a fuck what they’d seen or heard. What did he have to fear from someone like Fernei, anyway?

“We’re closer than you can imagine,” he said with a glowing smile, turned on his heel, and walked away.

***

Work ended at six here, leaving most people with the evening off, and Tilrey couldn’t get used to it. As he headed for the lift that would take him to Fernei’s residence, the formerly deserted corridor exploded with the dinner crowd, most of them menials or young singles without their own family kitchens.

People yelled, whistled, called, laughed, complained, all at top volume. Navigating the bottleneck outside the caf, Tilrey felt a hand on his elbow and turned to find Lourisa, alone.

“Are you coming to eat with us? Dal’s already in there.”

Was he imagining it, or did her eyes have a curious intensity behind the usual pleasant smile? If Dartán had told her to expect a message from him, she must be getting antsy.

He smiled back just as blandly, glad he’d thought to hide the envelope beneath a loose tile in the floor of his room. Before he decided what to do with it, he needed to have that talk with Dal. “Thanks, but I’ve got plans right now. How about I see you two at breakfast?”

“Just don’t be a stranger, okay? Dal talks about you all the time. It means so much to her to catch up.”

***

Supervisor Ernst Fernei was a grandfather, and he looked the part—snowy hair, withered cheeks, and a dimpled, beneficent smile. Tilrey couldn’t recall him ever looking different; as a kid, he’d sometimes fantasized the Supervisor was _his_ grandfather. When he and his mother came to dinner, the man always had kind words and sweets to offer.

Fernei was smiling that same kind smile as he ushered Tilrey into his quarters on the sector’s top level.

“What a pleasure to see you, lad!” He cocked his head. “I’d heard through the grapevine that you looked well, but it was an understatement. The very image of your father, _may his last moment be bright_.”

“Good to see you as well.” Tilrey clasped the man’s hand, keeping his tone reserved.

He stopped himself at the last minute from adding _Fir_ , the way his mother had trained him to do when addressing his elders. This time he wouldn’t allow Fernei to intimidate him. It was hard not to stare, though, at the picture window with a magnificent view of the slow-approaching twilight. This was the same penthouse apartment where Fernei had lived throughout Tilrey’s childhood, luxurious for Thurskein if modest by Upstart standards.

The Supervisor gestured toward the couch, then seated himself in an armchair with all the dignity of a Councillor. “And those R5 clothes quite suit you. It’s a while since we’ve seen a native son of Sector Six advance so far. Is it true what I’ve heard, that you work in a Councillor’s office in the Sector?”

“Yes,” Tilrey said shortly. All this flattery must be Fernei’s way of smoothing over the memory of their last conversation, which had been held downstairs in the detention block and not nearly as polite.

Tilrey had been handcuffed, swollen-eyed, a criminal. Fernei had brought an Upstart into his cell and left them alone, and the Upstart had done some leering and some pawing that, while they seemed trivial to Tilrey in retrospect, had left his younger self speechless with shame and violation.

Afterward, he hadn’t been able to meet the Supervisor’s eyes as Fernei laid out what he claimed were Tilrey’s two options going forward: prison or “flying off with the Fir.” When Tilrey asked permission to speak with his mother about such a big decision, Fernei became brutal: _Do you really want to see her cry? You’ll be paying for your mistake with your ass either way, but if you go to Redda, you’ll have a chance to make something of yourself._

No, he wasn’t going to forget that. And Fernei was no fool; he must know why Tilrey was here, even if he was still hoping to curry favor with the Councillors he knew Tilrey was on intimate terms with.

A boy emerged from the kitchen, laden down with serving trays. A tea kettle whistled, and Fernei sprang up to relieve the server of his burden. While the boy scuttled back to the kitchen to get the kettle, the old man arranged the dishes of rice, fish, and greens on the low table. “Not what you’re used to, I’m sure.”

“A good spread is always appreciated.” Tilrey was too tense to have an appetite. He forced himself to spoon rice into a bowl, knowing Fernei would wait until he did—the model host.

The boy returned with the kettle and poured for them. He had the reediness of a teenager, with wavy ash-blond hair and full lips, but he wore sweats and a tight pullover instead of a school uniform. This wasn’t one of the Supervisor’s many grandchildren.

Tilrey had known Fernei ran a stable of whores well before his mother pointed them out. Offering pretty boys to visiting Upstarts was just one of those things Supervisors did to ensure good treatment for their sector; _not_ doing it would have raised questions. It was the boys themselves people cracked jokes about—low-born lazy addicts or deliquents, or so everybody said.

Now Tilrey found himself wondering how old the boy was, and whether he’d chosen this. As Fernei waved the boy back to the kitchen, his skin crawled at the thought of those horny old hands.

He did his best to eat civilly and make small talk about the flight here and his mother’s health. Fernei asked a series of careful, touristy questions about Redda: Was the Sector really made entirely of black granite? Had he seen the sunset from the edge of the city, and was it as spectacular as advertised?

As they finished the main course, the Supervisor edged closer to his likely real topic. “He allows you a certain amount of freedom, then? Your Councillor? He must be very fond of you.”

“He likes the work I do for him.”

“But . . .” A raised eyebrow. “You don’t just serve him in the office, I imagine?”

Tilrey was abruptly tired of playing dumb. “What _do_ you imagine, Fir Supervisor? Are you trying to figure out whether I’m still just a fuck-piece with a glorified title, or someone with actual sway who might use it to your advantage?”

He finished the sentence with a gesture that sent his fork clattering to the table. The boy, emerging from the kitchen with a dish of sweet rice balls, darted over to pick it up.

Fernei smiled placidly at this display, waving the boy toward the kettle. “I beg your pardon for anything I seemed to be insinuating. Your life is your own.”

_Damn right it is._ And Tilrey had no interest in doing favors for this man, at least not for free. “We need to discuss my mother,” he said as the boy bent to refill his tea. “I want her proper ration level restored.”

Fernei sipped his own tea with a meek, befuddled look that reminded Tilrey uncomfortably of Magistrate Linnett. _Are you accusing me of something? I’m just a harmless old man._

“Your mother’s choice gives me great pain as well, lad,” he said. “But, as you know, every free citizen can choose to receive a lower ration level than they’re entitled to. What do you suggest I do—force her to adopt a pleasanter lifestyle?”

“You could give her something to change her mind, to win back her trust. Like . . . an apology.”

At this implied accusation, Fernei only looked mournful. “Angelika’s a proud woman, Tilrey. You have more influence with her than I ever could. I only hope seeing you so tall and strong and thriving will ease her mind and help her let go of her resentments.”

All this was straight out of Linnett’s manipulative playbook; it was so familiar that Tilrey laughed out loud. “Don’t pull this bullshit on me, Fir Supervisor. Don’t pretend you don’t know what she’s angry about.”

“I hardly think I—”

“And don’t give me the _Everything I did was for your own good_ line, either. I’m not eighteen now. My mom’s pissed because you sent me off and didn’t even give her a chance to say goodbye. Can you deny she has a point?”

The look of concern dropped from Fernei’s face like a mask. He leaned back and rested his chin on his knuckles. “You seem to be holding a bit of a grudge yourself. Is that why you came here today—to berate me?”

Tilrey kept his voice level. “Don’t try to turn this back on me. I know how politicians work.”

“Oh my, I imagine you do, don’t you?” A lazy smile. “I imagine you’ve learned from the best. I notice you speak like _them_ now.”

_Don’t let him goad you,_ said Linnett’s voice, reawakening somewhere deep inside Tilrey. _You’re way out of his class now._

Tilrey drew a deep breath. “No, I didn’t come here to berate you. Why bother? You can’t give my mother back what she’s lost.”

“Only you can do that,” said Fernei with one of those grandfatherly twinkles. “I imagine she’d be happy if you found a nice girl and gave her a grandchild. Eh?”

Fernei knew his mother too well, but Tilrey wouldn’t be distracted again. He’d had a reason to come here, hadn’t he? Or _had_ he really only wanted to berate somebody—to have somebody to blame?

No. He said, “I came here to ask you one question, and only one. What did you sell me for?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Tilrey used one of his coldest stares, the kind that unnerved even Besha. “All I want to know is the price. What you got in exchange for me. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

Fernei drew himself up, on the defensive at last. “But you know that, lad—I never hid anything from you! In return for certain concessions from me, Admin Makari agreed to punish the ringleaders of the Dissident plot without imposing sanctions on the rest of the sector. You were, uh, one of those concessions. Without you, we would have suffered hardships—”

Tilrey felt a chilly, stabbing sort of triumph. “Yeah, I seem to remember you saying I would ‘save my sector.’ That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

Redda didn’t impose broad sanctions on rebellious Thurskein sectors; too harsh an approach lowered productivity. Tilrey remembered how Linnett had set him straight, with a look of mingled pity and embarrassment: _It would be nice to think a pretty face has the power to save a sector, but I fear your Supervisor was selling you a bill of goods._

“You lied because you knew I couldn’t take the truth,” he said. “Respect me enough to be honest now.”

The attentive, kindly look had melted off Fernei’s face again. “Fine. No, you didn’t save your sector. Thanks to _my_ good relations with Central Admin in Redda, it was never in danger.” He scrubbed fingers through his snowy white hair. “You sure you want to know the rest?”

Tilrey nodded.

“There’s not much to it. Admin Makari saw you in detention and liked your looks. He was on the lookout for a boy he could offer to a Councillor, with all sorts of picky requirements: young, fresh, shy, that kind of thing. I told him your mother was my trusted lieutenant, so you were off-limits. He pointed out you were facing a prison sentence for shirking. Plus which, a bright boy like you would have more opportunities in Redda. So I gave you to Makari in exchange for . . .” He consulted the ceiling. “Two hundred vials of sap and four months of elevated ration shipments, including four barrels of good Harbourer brown ale and forty pounds of smoked salmon.”

Wild laughter rose in Tilrey’s throat and stalled there, threatening to choke him. “You sold me for four barrels of ale?”

“That was only _part_ of it.” The Supervisor spread his hands. “And it wasn’t as if I enjoyed those goods myself. I distributed them to deserving people of all levels, as I always do.”

_Your loyalist cronies, you mean._ The incredulous laughter was turning to rage, cinching his throat and massing behind his eyes. “That’s really all?”

“Sap is precious here, in case you’ve forgotten. But okay, yes, I also asked Makari for a personal handheld to watch streams on.” Fernei took on that mild, helpless look again. “You didn’t go cheaply, if that’s what concerns you. But look at you—working in the Sector, a Councillor’s favorite. You can’t say you’d rather be here in ’Skein, can you? Where your potential would be wasted?”

_No._ Unable to control his expression, Tilrey rose and walked over to the picture window. He stared down at the gleaming snow plains marred by the security wall, letting the familiar anger eat him from inside, hungry as flame.

After a moment, he managed to say, “When Makari gave me—sold me, I guess—to Fir Councillor Jena, I was not a willing participant. I was not—I was never—” There were no words to say it, no way to convey the difference between what he’d been then and was now.

Fernei said smoothly, “We all do things we don’t want to sometimes, for a greater purpose.”

Tilrey turned, rage choking him again, every sinew tight with the urge to slap that patronizing look off the Supervisor’s face. But he couldn’t yell, couldn’t lose control.

Instead, he reached for the only thing that always worked to mold men to his will. He asked in his most haughty, Upstart-like tone, “Would you like a sample?”

“Excuse me?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know what you were actually selling? Or did you try not to think too hard about it?” He walked over to the Supervisor’s chair, feeling a strange confidence take hold of him. Sank to his knees. “Easier that way, right?”

Fernei edged away from him. “What are you doing?”

Now, this felt good. This felt like power. One hand on the Supervisor’s thigh, stroking teasingly toward his groin, wiped the superiority off the old man’s face in no time flat.

“I’m so fucking sick of everybody here acting like they don’t know what I am. But you do. And I imagine, if I gave you a demo, you could put an exact value of sap vials and beer barrels on it.”

Fernei cleared his throat, but no words came out.

_Go ahead. Call my bluff._ Would he suck Fernei’s cock to prove a point? Why not—what was one more or less? Only one of them had dignity to lose.

“Two General Magistrates have kept me,” he murmured. “You like Strutters’ toys, don’t you?”

Neither moved for an interval that felt longer than a few seconds—Fernei rigid, Tilrey’s hand a few centimeters from his cock. He could almost feel its growing hardness under his palm, could almost hear the old man gasping and pleading him not to stop.

_Prove you’re a monster. Take what I’m offering._

But when he inched the hand a little farther, Fernei picked it up and removed it.

“You’re like family to me, lad. I watched you grow up. Why would I want that?”

Feeling triumphant and empty at once—had he won or lost?—Tilrey rose again. “You’re a goddamn hypocrite. You didn’t think twice about sending me off to get used and passed around till I could barely remember my own name.”

Had his voice wobbled? No, of course not. But when he managed to look at the Supervisor, Fernei’s expression of pity was unmistakable.

“I did think twice. I was sorry to do it then, and I’m sorry now.”

Tilrey barely stopped his mouth from contorting. “Not too sorry to enjoy that handheld?”

“But what can I _do_ , lad? An apology’s of no use to you.”

“You could voluntarily retire and recommend my mother to replace you.” Saying the words, he knew they were absurd. Fernei had always been Supervisor, would remain Supervisor till he was a cooling corpse. He would never step aside.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be _swept_ aside.

After an instant of dangerous blankness, Fernei grinned. “You had me going there for a minute, lad. And I suppose you’ll threaten me with all the power of your besotted Councillor if I don’t step aside?”

Tilrey smiled back, putting the force of his charm into it. “If I had the power to do something like that, do you think you’d still be sitting in this penthouse?”

“I imagine you’d have me in prison for corruption if it were up to you.”

“Oh, that would be overkill.” He spoke lightly, trying to ignore his rage staticking in the background. _Do it. Crush him. Whatever it takes._ “If we put all the corrupt leaders in prison, we’d have no leadership.”

Fernei just kept grinning in that sharkish way—a look Tilrey knew too well, steeped in the self-awareness of power. “You’re a _lot_ more interesting than you used to be,” he said. “Certainly a more amusing conversationalist than your mother. I wonder what she thinks of what you’ve become.”

“She’s proud of me. As she ought to be.”

“Of course she is,” said Fernei with devastating understatement.

_Walk away. You can’t beat him here and now._

“Forgive me, Fir Supervisor.” He lowered his gaze, let his voice shake a little. Let the man think he was too damaged to be a threat. “I don’t know what came over me—it never helps to dredge up the past. I hope you won’t tell my mother that I—I . . .”

Fernei’s grin had settled back into the grandfatherly ease, the beneficent twinkle. “Of course not, lad. Of course not.”


	5. Second Night

Tilrey left the lift at a random floor and wandered the corridors, losing himself in their wendings. He passed lounges where workers were drinking hard after a long day on the factory floor. He passed knots of students and card players who stopped to stare at his R5 jerkin, and kids who barreled through the halls playing games he half-remembered.

Had he just openly threatened the man who ruled over all this? The anger had swallowed everything for a bit, reason and control just gone, so it was hard to tell. Had he put Fernei on his guard, or simply amused the man by acting odd, erratic, downright crazy? Which, perhaps, he was. After all, he’d—

Never mind, here was a pub. He ordered a bottle of something foul, took a swallow, and watched the ending of a stream pod on the cylinder. On the screen, a dewy-eyed young Skeinsha factory worker was being persecuted by her lecherous foreman, who promised her a desk job in return for sexually satisfying him and his friends. Just as she was about to throw herself out a window, an Upstart Admin appeared, wearing a blindingly white tunic, and announced that the corrupt foreman had been sent to detention. _If you work hard and have integrity, you need never fear the wicked_ , he quoted Whyberg.

A few drinkers slapped their palms on the bar, cheering on this denouement. Tilrey couldn’t tell if their smiles had a mocking edge or if he just wanted them to. He rose, his head spinning a little, and kept walking. He tried not to think.

When the corridors finally returned him to his tiny room, it was nearly eleven, and somebody was lounging against the door.

After a confused moment, Tilrey recognized the ash-blond server boy he’d met in Fernei’s apartment. Part of the Supervisor’s stable, no doubt.

The boy’s gray-blue eyes met Tilrey’s in a way that was both suggestive and confrontational. “Supervisor sent me,” he said with his thick Skeinsha burr, moving aside to let Tilrey open up. “Said he wanted to help you feel at home here, Fir, with some, um, amenities. So here I am.”

Tilrey stiffened. What had he said to Gersha on their first meeting? _I’m your gift, Fir._

Maybe Fernei had sent him a whore as mockery, or maybe it was a sincere gesture of apology. It didn’t matter. “No thanks,” he said, punching the code. “You can go back and tell him I’m not interested.”

The boy blocked the door. “Look, I’m good.” He ran a finger down Tilrey’s arm, then dropped his eyes as if surprised by his own daring. “I’ll do anything you want, Fir.”

Tilrey’s skin crawled. “I don’t want you. And don’t call me Fir.”

“Learned how to suck cock on Upstarts. Don’t think you’ll be sorry.”

Tilrey slid sideways through the door, brushing off the kid’s hands as gently as he could. “Look, I don’t know if he sent you as a joke or in good faith, but I know all your tricks, and I’m not interested in favors from him. Or in fucking minors.”

The boy looked aggrieved, the violet shadows under his eyes enhancing the pallor of his skin. Visiting Upstarts probably paid well for him. “I’m not a joke, and I’ll be eighteen in five months. Fir Supervisor says I’m actually _old_ for this. If you want somebody younger—”

“I don’t.” Tilrey sat down hard on the bed, trying not to think about the underage occupants of Fernei’s stable. How did his mother bite her tongue and keep on doing her job, day after day?

“Look,” he said, “I don’t want to get you in trouble. If you have to, you can go back and tell Fernei you gave me a good time. Tell him I moaned so loudly the whole corridor heard.”

Emboldened, the boy slipped in and closed the door behind him. “Can I stay the night with you, at least? Don’t want the Supe to hear I was out roaming the halls.”

Too late, Tilrey realized it had been a mistake to make any kind of concession. “Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”

The boy sat on the bed and folded his gangly legs, but he kept his distance from Tilrey. “Nah. He keeps a close watch on us, makes sure we’re in the dorm or with him when we’re not out working.”

So the boy was a virtual prisoner—unless he was Fernei’s spy, sent with a sob story to gather information. The mute resignation at the heart of the kid’s eyes, under the tough exterior, made Tilrey want to trust him. “Fine,” he said. “You can sleep here. But I’m not touching you, and I don’t want you trying anything while I’m asleep.”

The boy grinned wide at that. “Sure thing, Fir. Not gonna molest you. And you won’t regret it—lookit what I brought.” He pulled out a sap vial. “He said I should share it with you.”

“He’s the perfect host, that Fernei, isn’t he?” Tilrey took the vial, unplugged it, and poured two thirds into the kid’s palm and one third into his own. A semblance of a plan was forming in his head now. “Drink up.” If the boy wasn’t deep in addiction yet, the dose might loosen his tongue.

They both licked the sweet, heady liquid from their palms. The boy cleaned his with great care, then propped himself against the wall and stretched. “Thanks. Damn, that feels good. Sure you don’t want me? Not your type, huh?”

“It’s not that.” Tilrey leaned back, too, maintaining the distance. “What’s your name?”

“Mal.”

“For Malkien?” He smiled. “That was the name of my first—well, the first man who ever really owned me. Like your Supervisor owns you. He liked to be called Malsha.”

The boy gazed at him, pupils already blown from the sap. “Is it true you’re a real kettle boy? Dressed up like an Upstart and everything? Like in the streams?”

“I was.” What romantic nonsense were the streams feeding kids these days? Were the Upstarts all saviors in gleaming-white tunics, or were there evil ones, too? “Believe me, it’s not that different from what you do.”

“I honestly wouldn’t mind sucking you off, Fir Bronn. You look tasty. That’s what the Supe told me: ‘He’s a tasty one, it’s your lucky night.’” Mal gave himself a little shake. “Sorry, sap does this to me sometimes. Gets rid of the brain-mouth filter.”

“No worries.” Tilrey was starting to understand why Gersha had found it off-putting to be the object of his own professional attentions. Flattery and seduction could be positively creepy when they were someone’s job, even when that person claimed to be off the clock.

“You seem like a smart kid,” he said, changing the subject. “How’d you get into this?”

Mal coughed. “Are you gonna give me a lecture on ‘real’ work, like my mom and my uncle?”

“No. They give you a hard time?”

“They’re proud. You know how it is.”

“Yeah.” If Mal’s family thought he was above selling himself, they weren’t the kind of people who lived on this windowless floor, and the boy probably hadn’t gotten into this line of work to better his lot. He didn’t seem like an addict, either. “I’m just curious,” Tilrey said. “Did you overhear my conversation with the Supervisor?”

When the violet-blue eyes wheeled to him, he added, “I’m not angry. I’m just thinking, if you did hear, you know it wasn’t my choice to serve Upstarts that way. Was it yours?”

Mal laughed nervously. “I’m not complaining.”

“And I’m not going to report anything you say to Fernei. So tell me, how’d you get into this? A kid like you—probably doing well at school, looking forward to a desk posting.” Tilrey cleared his throat, proceeding carefully. “I’ve got a friend in Redda who could’ve been most anything, but he chose to be a kettle boy. He thinks it’s honorable work, providing a service people need.”

Mal snorted. “Good for him.”

“It is good for him. He chose it, and it works for him. But with me, well—with me it was different.”

“You made a mistake, huh?”

“A big one.” _And if you were eavesdropping, you know what it was._ Tilrey went on, keeping his tone as light as he could, “Did you make a mistake, too, Mal? Steal something? Cheat on a test? Get yourself sweet-drowned?”

Mal shook his head, but his lips were curving in a grin or grimace. “Nah, you’re way off.”

“Work the black market? Get in a fight? Rape someone?”

“No _way_. I’m not an asshole.”

Tilrey lowered his voice. “Then there’s one thing left. You’re a shirker.”

The boy’s expression flattened itself into blankness. “Nah. Don’t have a death wish.”

It was a fairly convincing denial, but not convincing enough to keep Tilrey from saying under his breath, “The true hearth never stops burning.”

It was a shot in the dark. He had no way of knowing whether Skeinsha Dissidents—if the boy even was a Dissident—shared passwords with their Reddan counterparts.

But Mal’s response left no room for interpretation. He edged away from Tilrey, the color draining from his face. “What the fuck? Did they _send_ you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he went on frantically: “I’m out of it, okay? I can’t help you. The Supe would kill me. It was only a _little_ thing I did, carrying a few messages, and he said I’d be in detention for years. Can’t do that to my family. Please, _please_ don’t—”

Tilrey held up a hand. “I’m not here to make you do anything, Mal. I’m just wondering if you could tell me something.”

He broke off, his gaze darting around the room; he should’ve checked the light fixture earlier. “Does Fernei tend to surveille his visitors?”

“Sometimes.” Mal was whispering. “But not you, I think. He’s terrified of your mom—that she’ll resign her posting again. She does all the boring shit he doesn’t like to do.”

Tilrey wasn’t surprised. “I’ll keep this quick and vague,” he said, noting how the boy still shrank from him. Whatever Fernei had done or threatened Mal with when he caught him playing shirker message boy, it had worked.

Tilrey’s resolution hardened with the realization that he hadn’t been the last kid Fernei forced into that life, or probably the first, either. Back in Redda, Gersha was on the case, but for now he had something else to worry about—or someone. Dal. “I was sent here to deliver a message,” he said, “but the recipient isn’t as easy to find as I hoped.”

Mal’s eyes remained wide with terror. “I’ve been out of it a _while._ Did they send you here from the Sector to infiltrate the cell and bust it up? Because I won’t—I can’t—”

Tilrey improvised an explanation that had a chance of setting the boy’s mind at rest. “I’m here on behalf of a well-placed Upstart who’s sympathetic to the cause of reform. Fact-finding mission only. Find my contact, deliver the message, receive a briefing. Now, do you have any ideas about where to find other people who might recognize those words that meant so much to you?”

Mal’s pale lips opened, closed. “Aren’t you scared? I mean, you live in Redda. With Upstarts. Your Councillor . . .”

“. . . knows nothing about this. But, Malsha, there are all kinds of Upstarts. Most of them are perfectly happy with the system. But some”— he lowered his voice to a whisper— “some have their doubts, just like us. Will you help me?”

Mal pressed a hand to his forehead. “ _Fuck_. Just be careful, okay? This could’ve changed, but some of them used to meet every eighth-night at eleven in Hangar Four, where the cargo planes load. They pretended they were a hobby circle, making model planes and stuff, but nobody got in without mentioning the True Hearth.”

Tilrey’s head began to whirl as if he were having a belated reaction to the sap. “Eighth-day is tomorrow.”

“Today now,” Mal said.


	6. The True Hearth

Tilrey didn’t sleep well, sharing his narrow bed with the boy and being careful to avoid even accidental touching. Around dawn, Mal left with a whispered “Thanks. Good luck.” Tilrey hoped he wouldn’t run upstairs to Fernei and report that their visitor was a Dissident.

But the boy didn’t seem like a snitch. Before going to breakfast, Tilrey checked on Dartán’s message in its hiding place—still there, still sealed.

His mother reported to work early, which gave them both an excuse not to rehash yesterday’s argument. He breakfasted with Dal, who teased him some more about “his Councillor,” bugging him for details. “Is he hot? Is he old? Is he married?”

“He’s thirteen years older than me, and no, he’s a sanctioned celibate.” Suddenly he couldn’t resist turning things around on her. “How do _you_ feel about marriage, Dal? Because my mom seems to think I’m going to come back here and start a family with you.”

Dal choked on her porridge. Beside her, Lourisa patted her back, grinning wickedly.

“She said that?” Dal gulped her tea.

He nodded. “She seems to think the three of us—or four, if you count Lourisa’s husband—can work it out.”

“Funny how she never bothered to ask _me_ whether I wanted to be your wife and bear your children.”

Lourisa said, “Lisha’s a romantic. She and Tilrey’s dad were madly in love, so she’s convinced you two are similiarly destined.”

“But she used to say I wasn’t good enough for her son. She must be so damn desperate to have Tilrey back here that she’ll use any lure she can.”

Tilrey had a hard time thinking of his mother as desperate, but perhaps Dal was right. “Is she really that unhappy?”

Dal looked at Lourisa and back at him. Shrugged. “She was for a while. But think about it: you barely wrote. You never visited.”

“I’m here now.” Again that guilt, like an itchy sweater on bare skin—in a way, anger was easier. “I could come again—every year. A few times a year. But that wouldn’t be enough for her, would it?”

Dal’s brown eyes held him dispassionately. “I don’t know. It may take Lisha a while to get used to who you are now. But you being here at all, that’s a good start.”

After they went to work, Tilrey visited the library and prowled the halls, worrying about tonight. If he didn’t find Dal at the meeting of these True Hearth people, was he prepared to deliver Dartán’s message and let it go? Or should he ask questions that might endanger his whole life in Redda?

And if he did find Dal, well, how the fuck was he going to save her from herself? She might seem like the soul of reason when she gave him advice on handling his mother, but when it came to her own affairs, she was as headstrong as ever.

It was a relief when a cafeteria worker handed him a note and said, “You’ve got a call.” Tilrey cut short his solitary lunch and trudged back up to the connection cubicle.

Gersha’s face on the screen was a welcome distraction. “I did that research you asked for,” the Councillor said, the sly smile suggesting it had been fruitful.

Yesterday afternoon, deposing Supervisor Fernei had been an idle thought. Today, Tilrey wanted to bring the man down so badly he could taste it. But they’d have to proceed carefully. “How hard would it be?” he asked.

Gersha had his feet up on his desk and the handheld in his palm. The Sector was half-empty for recess, but it was just like him to go there diligently anyway. “A lot easier than I thought,” he said. “From what Niko says, city Supervisors basically serve at the pleasure of one or a few Councillors. They obtain patronage by supplying us with, well, illicit goods. Everyone else turns a blind eye . . . usually.”

“So, who are Sector Six’s friends in the Council?”

Gersha moved in, his face filling the screen. “Fir Jena has admin jurisdiction there, but he’s been pretty hands-off since his party lost power. Your man’s well liked, but he doesn’t have a particular Council power player on his side right now.”

_Which means we can take him down._ Tilrey felt the remnants of last night’s rage sing through him, the impotent anger transforming itself into anticipation. “Just as a hypothetical, Fir Councillor, how do you think City Admin would feel about a Supervisor running underage prostitutes out of his sector, if a Councillor bothered to report such a thing?”

His lover’s green eyes widened. “You can prove that?”

Fernei was probably an expert at hiding evidence, but Tilrey knew how to find at least one witness. “Hypothetical!” he said, with a small, meaningful nod. “Do you think a report from one Councillor would suffice?”

Gersha drew himself up, the white robe of office rippling from his shoulders, and said in his most well-bred, self-righteous voice, “I should hope so. Exploitation of youth is a stain upon the fabric of the Republic.”

He’d say it just like that when he went to Admin, and they’d listen. “I love the tight weave of your moral fiber, Fir,” Tilrey said with a grin that fell just short of lascivious. “It makes it such a pleasure to work for you.”

Gersha blushed deeply. “Everything’s more boring without you,” he said in a small voice. “Do come back soon.”

***

Before dinner, Tilrey went into a bathroom stall, the place that seemed least likely to have cams installed, and opened Dartán’s envelope.

Scrawled on the slip inside were a set of geographic coordinates well to the south—in Harbour, he surmised. Nothing else. He committed the numbers to memory, then tore the paper into minuscule scraps and flushed them.

Back in her tiny apartment, his mother was serving red- and gold-veined chard paired with rice and bean curd. Reminding himself he’d grown up on this diet—no eel rolls or smoked salmon, certainly no beef or chicken—Tilrey complimented it and dug in.

His mother waited until they were nearly done to say, “Did you get what you wanted from Supervisor Fernei?”

“What do you think I wanted?”

He stood up and reached for her plate, but she shook her head and took his instead. “You’re the guest.”

She brewed the after-dinner tea in silence, waiting until she poured it to say, “Your dealings with Fernei are your own affair, but you’ve no business speaking to him on my behalf.”

“He told you that?” What was Fernei playing at?

“How I live is my business, and how you live is yours.” The narrow blue eyes, tight on his, made it clear just what she thought of how he lived. “Is that understood, Rishka?”

Tilrey bent toward the steaming cup and let perspiration bead on his cheeks. In the frigid air of his mother’s pride, his plot to depose Fernei felt more like a childish prank. How much of their conversation had the Supervisor reported to her? Had it included the part where he offered himself?

“For you to live this way seems . . . stupid,” he muttered. “I couldn’t help trying.”

His mother sipped her tea standing up, staring at the opposite wall where a window should have been. “I couldn’t help trying, either,” she said.

***

Tilrey returned to his room a few minutes later, his mood not improved, to find Pers waiting by the door where Mal had been last night. His friend wore a constable’s uniform, the jacket unbuttoned to make the insignia less obvious. He carried a bottle.

“Bettevy brown ale.” Pers’s tone was smooth, but the roots of his red hair were dark with sweat, as if he’d run here or was nervous. “Toast to old friends?”

Tilrey opened the door. He had nearly five hours to kill before eleven. “Does your wife know where you are, Persha?”

His tone was teasing, but Pers stiffened. “Told her I had a mountain of paperwork. I figured, well, you’re only here for two more nights.”

“So you thought you’d make use of me, eh?” Without waiting for an answer, Tilrey steered Pers back against the wall and kissed him.

His tongue proved effective at stifling his friend’s attempts at speech, especially when combined with the thigh he eased between Pers’s legs. Pers gasped and melted into Tilrey’s arms, opening his mouth and kissing back with wet, helpless abandon.

It was good watching a man lose control. Almost good enough to make Tilrey forget the look in his mother’s eyes. “I’ll be on top this time,” he whispered.

***

Detaching himself from Pers, several hours later, turned out to be harder. The young man grumbled sleepily, clinging to Tilrey and pressing his face against his chest, tongue flicking at a nipple. “Where’re you going?”

Tilrey considered making an elaborate excuse and decided there was no point: the combination of ale and being fucked for the first time would make Pers tough to budge from this bed. His eyes were already slipping shut.

He tugged himself free, gave Pers a consolatory kiss, and gathered his clothes, his head almost painfully clear now he’d sobered up. “I’m going to shower—be right back, love. You sleep.”

He’d mapped Hangar Four earlier in the day. It still took nearly an hour to get there: a long lift ride down into the bowels of the city, followed by a hike through chilly concrete corridors lit at wide intervals by sodium lights.

When the ceiling vanished into the shadows, and his steps began to echo, he knew he was nearly there. One, Two, Three, and here was Four—a sliding portal twice his height.

A surly-looking young man in a coverall slouched beside it. “You lost, Fir? Looking for the passenger flights?”

When Tilrey replied only, “The true hearth never stops burning,” the youth’s face froze. “Who sent you?”

“A friend in Redda who imports flour.” He crossed his arms, trying to look as if delivering Dissident messages were nothing new to him. “He tells me you’re interested in knowing the coordinates of a supplier.”

The youth looked dubious. “Never seen you. Name?”

“Lourisa knows me. I’m a guest here.”

The youth held up a finger, then yanked the hangar door open a crack and vanished inside.

Tilrey waited, leaning against the wall, the cold seeping through his jerkin. His arms ached from supporting him while he fucked Pers, and he couldn’t help but wish he were still enfolded in the bedclothes and the warmth of his friend’s body.

This was risky, and possibly very stupid. He had a Councillor’s protection, yes, but Gersha didn’t know Tilrey had ever had dealings with Dissidents, didn’t know his own friend Egil was one. Wasn’t ready to know, according to Egil. The young Councillor was starting to grasp the deep corruption of the system, but he’d been raised to equate resistance with treason, and his knee-jerk response might still be to turn them both over to Int/Sec.

And Tilrey wasn’t ready to go back there.

When the enormous portal grated open, too fast, he wasn’t prepared. He was even less prepared for Dal’s small, strong fingers latching on to his sleeve and tugging him inside, as her deep voice demanded, “Tilrey, what the fuck are you doing?”

A floodlight pooled on the concrete floor, blinding him as it illuminated a group of at least a dozen men and women in coveralls. Motion in the corner of his eye told him others lurked in the shadows of the two big, blunt-nosed cargo planes.

He said, “I needed to know if I’d find you here. What are _you_ doing?”

Dal pushed him away now, as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted him close or far. “How’d you know about us? Are you with us?”

“That’s complicated.”

“Who’s he? Why should we trust him?” a man’s voice asked.

“He mentioned the Flour Man.”

“He’s from Redda. Councillor’s whore.”

“He’s not a whore!” Dal said.

The shirkers were circling him, burly and grim-faced, sizing him up. Tilrey raised his hands, shooting a glance at Dal to warn her to let him speak for himself.

“The Flour Man knows me through a friend of mine.” Dartán’s name was probably known only to the members of his immediate cell in Redda. “I’m not part of your Hearth, but I work toward the same goal in different circles. He gave me a message to deliver to Lourisa Beishoft.”

“I’m here.” Lourisa stepped out from between two of the hulking workingmen, looking small but determined beside them. “They said a visitor would bring an envelope, so I was waiting. But I didn’t think you’d know—”

“What I was actually carrying?” Tilrey wondered how much Dartán had expected him to know. Maybe the whole errand had been a test—or a trap.

“Well, there’s no envelope now,” he said, shifting his gaze from Lourisa’s self-possessed face to Dal’s worried one. “There’s a message, which I’ll give you. On two conditions.”

Lourisa raised a brow. The more he watched her, the more Tilrey wondered if she might be the one in charge here. “I’m listening.”

“First, you tell me exactly what you’re going to do with the information.” Ignoring the mutterings of the men behind him, he turned to Dal. “And second, you promise not to involve my friend in it.”

Dal went rigid with rage the way Tilrey remembered from their childhood; she looked an inch away from stamping her foot. “You can _not_ tell me what I can and can’t do. Do you know how long I’ve been involved in this? Since you left! Since they took you away.”

“Shh.” Lourisa slipped a soothing arm around Dal’s waist, but her eyes on Tilrey were cold. “She’s right, obviously. You can’t control her; she’s already part of this. Unless you’re going to threaten to betray us to your Councillor?”

“He wouldn’t,” Dal said.

“No, I don’t think he would.” Lourisa was sizing him up, but not the way the others had. He could feel her trying to read his mood, his intentions. “If the Flour Man gave him the message, he’s too deep in for that. Or he’s a double agent—but I doubt the Sector would send someone like him to infiltrate us. He talks like an Upstart, and he sleeps with one. He’s not someone we’d trust.”

“So you’re saying we should trust him because we _shouldn’t_ trust him?” the loudest-voiced man objected.

“No. I’m saying we should give him a chance.” Again her eyes probed Tilrey’s. “You can’t be half in on this, you know. If you give me that message, you’re one of us. And this time you won’t be able to use being a love-sick teenager as an excuse.”

Blood rushed to Tilrey’s face. “I need to know what you’re going to use these coordinates for,” he said, buying time. “They’re in Harbour—I can tell that much. Are you selling weapons to one of their warlords?”

Lourisa and one of the men exchanged glances. “No. We’ve sent them certain machine parts, but never weapons. We don’t want to arm them against Oslov. We’re not trying to start a war.”

“What are you doing, then?” He looked around the circle. “Because what _I’m_ working on is passing legislation to make the system more fair.”

“Fair?” Dal said.

Their murmurs were derisive now; the loud-voiced man laughed. “Like that fucking matters to us. Ain’t no such thing as fair when you’re born in ’Skein.”

Tilrey edged away from them, feeling abruptly as naïve as any Upstart. “ _I_ was born in ’Skein, same as any of you. Look, I’m not passing judgment, and I won’t turn you in. I’m willing to help you—this once, anyway. What are the coordinates?”

“They’re a landing strip,” said Lourisa, cutting short the grumblings around her. “A remote field surrounded by hundreds of miles of deep forest in a country that isn’t friendly with Oslov. A place where our cargo pilots can make an unscheduled drop.”

“To drop what?”

“What do you think?” a woman asked.

Lourisa silenced her with a glance, while Dal came over to Tilrey and peered up at him with her great, velvety dark eyes. “Do you really not know?”

“’Course he doesn’t. He’s as bad as a Strutter.”

“If he doesn’t know, he shouldn’t know.”

Tilrey’s mind worked frantically, looking for the missing piece. What was their end-game? What were the alternatives to reforming the system? To take Redda by force? To invite Harbourers in to overrun Oslov?

Then he remembered something Linnett had said once: _Why would the Harbourers want to invade us? We gave away the habitable parts of Earth. We live in hell. They think we’re mad for isolating ourselves up here, because anyone sane would want to live where they do._

“People,” he said. “You’re smuggling people into Harbour and leaving them there. You’re depopulating Sector Six.”

It was so obvious when you thought about it, yet this was a form of resistance he and Egil had never discussed. Tilrey had always longed to visit Harbour, but something deep inside him cringed from the idea of defecting there. Leaving Oslov went against everything it meant to have Oslov blood running through your veins.

Dal snorted. “Does the sector look depopulated?”

“Not yet. But that’s your plan, isn’t it?”

Egil had smuggled Celinda Valde off to Harbour to save her life, but that was a one-time emergency measure. This was different. Dal had access to cargo flights through her maintenance crew. Lourisa worked in Records, which probably put her in a position to conceal an exodus if it started slowly enough, a few people at a time.

“You want to _live_ in Harbour?” Tilrey addressed the question to Dal, though she wasn’t meeting his eyes anymore. “Where it’s humid and rainy and there are bugs and pollen and overcrowding and war and epidemics? Where you could die of a random infection, or be hacked to pieces by bandits?”

One of the men laughed. “You believe everything they tell you, eh?”

“Shush, Garsh.” Lourisa looked impatient with all of them. “We aren’t planning to skip out tomorrow, Tilrey. We’re thinking decades ahead. In case you haven’t noticed, most of that fancy technology in Redda depends on _our_ labor.”

Dal jumped in: “Which means that, if we stop being prisoners of this city, if we have the option of taking off, we’ll have leverage over the entire Republic.”

Magistrate Linnett had escaped to Harbour—or “retired there,” as he put it. Tilrey had assumed the man was mad, but now he wondered: If an Upstart could go there and live well, why not a Laborer? Why not any of them?

For a wild instant, he could imagine it all happening. People progressively disappearing first from Sector Six, then from other sectors, till Thurskein was holding Redda hostage.

He shook his head. “That’ll never work. Once they notice what’s happening, they’ll swoop in exactly like they did last time. They’ll purge the lot of you. They—”

Behind them, a pounding began on the door.

Tilrey’s heart leapt into his throat as the whole circle went still. “Shit,” Dal whispered.

An amplified voice, muffled by the door, boomed, “This is an unlawful assembly after curfew. Open up in the name of the constabulary, or we override the locking code.”

Some of the Dissidents reached for weapons—pipes and wrenches and bolt cutters. Lourisa shook her head and motioned toward the back of the hangar. They scattered into the shadows, vanishing behind the bulk of planes and loaders.

Dal seized Tilrey’s hand and tried to pull him with her, but one of the men interposed himself. “It was him! He tipped them off!”

“Shh, Jansha,” said Lourisa, white-lipped. “No time for that. It’s just constables. You know what to do.” She tucked herself under the fuselage and disappeared.

Already the massive door was grinding open, admitting a small phalanx of constables in charcoal-gray riot gear. Tilrey froze as he saw the stun-rifles aimed at him. At least they weren’t soldiers armed to kill, but what did Lourisa mean by _just_ constables?

Constables reported to the Supervisor, who reported to Central Admin in Redda, which sent in the army. His nerves were on fire, more with anger than fear—because yes, he’d been stupid, but he was so fucking tired of being afraid.

The man named Jansha stepped forward, arms crossed on his mechanic’s coverall, clearly trying to look unconcerned. “What’s this, Fir Constable? We have permission to meet here.”

“You have a permit for five to nine people, not a dozen,” droned the constable at the head of the phalanx. He gestured to his subordinates to fan out to left and right, sweeping the room. “Take him in.” He raised his voice. “The rest of you, put your hands against the plane.”

A strangled laugh burst from Dal as the man stepped close enough for them to see his features through the helmet. “Have you come to fly model planes, Pers?”

Tilrey recognized Pers at the same instant Pers appeared to recognize Dal. The young constable stood stock still, his eyes desolate, mirroring Tilrey’s own feelings. “Shit, Dal. I knew _he_ was here, but you . . .”

Dal turned and placed her palms on the fuselage with a devil-may-care shrug. “Is it a crime to want to fly toy planes now?”

“We both know that’s not what you’re doing.”

Tilrey imitated Dal, trying not to feel betrayed. Pers was only doing his job. But if he was surprised to see Dal but not to see Tilrey, that could only mean one thing.

“Did you track me here?” he asked.

“I woke up and you were gone, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t get into any trouble. That’s all.” Pers’s voice wobbled a little, but his hands didn’t as they patted Tilrey down and locked his hands behind his back. “We’ve been hearing rumors about a new cell for a while.”

“Proud of yourself, Pers?” Dal asked, as another constable handcuffed her and swung her back around. “You like oppressing your own people?”

“No, I like keeping my own people safe.” Pers’s expression was still bleak, but he was moving with brisk efficiency, gesturing to his subordinates to gather the captured Dissidents at the center of the room. Lourisa wasn’t among them—had she found a way out?

Tilrey said to Dal, “I’m sorry.” She glanced back at him in a way he couldn’t read.

“You’ve both made your choices,” Pers said, clipping each syllable. “What happens next isn’t up to me.”


	7. The Mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Memories of non-con touching in this chapter. Also, much angst.

It wasn’t as bad as a Sector cell. Cinderblock walls, concrete floor, fluorescents. A bench. The walls didn’t quite muffle exterior sounds: steel doors slamming in the distance. Someone’s anguished, incoherent yelling.

Tilrey made himself as comfortable as he could on the bench and tried to think. Pers or Pers’s superior would report to Fernei, and then Fernei would make the decision on whether to handle this internally or report it to Redda, which would mean bringing in Int/Sec or the army.

It wasn’t himself he needed to worry about; Dal and Lourisa had no powerful friends in the Council. Trials of Laborer Dissidents, when there were trials at all, ended quickly. They flew you out into the Wastes and dumped you, a fate known as “exile” that was actually execution, since solo survival in the Wastes was all but impossible.

On the way here, before they were separated, he’d tried to gauge the severity of the situation from the others’ faces. Dal looked murderously angry; some of the others were obviously scared. Several of the Dissidents were missing from the group of prisoners, including Lourisa. Had they escaped, or been spirited elsewhere?

He leaned back now, closed his eyes. The smell of detention was familiar, mustiness and stale sweat, though he’d only been in one of these particular cells once before, and then for less than a day.

It wasn’t a good memory.

_The door slid open, admitting Supervisor Fernei, a soldier, and a pudgy, bald, middle-aged man in a tunic. The bald man’s gaze alighted on Tilrey and stayed there. Tilrey knew he was an Upstart, but he couldn’t square that with the man’s lazy posture and general ordinariness. Some childish part of him still expected them to be taller, or to have a bit of a superhuman glow._

_If the Supervisor had brought an Upstart along, Tilrey must be in real trouble. He’d already resolved to confess everything and beg for mercy, but what if they decided he was beyond reform? What if they exiled him?_

_His mother would be alone for the rest of her life, and it would be his fault._

_Supervisor Fernei didn’t look as if he were about to pronounce a death sentence, but he did look stern as he said, “Tilrey, this is Fir Administrator Makari, all the way from Redda. Give him your hand.”_

_Tilrey held it out, shaking. The Upstart took hold; his own hand was large and sweaty._

_“Fir Administrator has taken a special interest in your case, Tilrey,” Fernei said. “I told him you’ve had a spotless record until now, and I don’t believe you have serious shirker sympathies.”_

_“I d-don’t, Fir Supervisor, I swear.” Why wasn’t the Upstart letting go of his hand?_

_“He’s terrified,” the Upstart said in a Reddan drawl, sounding surprised and a bit pleased. And then, “Look at me, lad.”_

_When Tilrey saw the man’s speculative, hungry look, he ripped himself free. The Upstart recoiled._

_Green hells, what was wrong with Tilrey? Did he have a death wish? Hugging himself, shuddering, he turned to Fernei. Words flooded out: “I confess everything, Fir Supervisor. But I don’t believe in shirking, I never did. Someone dared me to go to that meeting, and I’m so sorry. Please—”_

_Fernei made a curt gesture, silencing Tilrey. Then he turned to the Upstart, his tone heavy with deference. “I’m afraid he was raised here, Fir, and has no concept of how to express the proper respect. If you think that might be a problem, perhaps I can find someone else . . .”_

_Tilrey backed against the wall. What the fuck was going on?_

_“A bit of feistiness isn’t a problem if he’s young enough to be taught. You said what—eighteen? Still in school, eh?” The Upstart’s eyes ran over Tilrey’s uniform. “Come to me, lad.”_

_Fernei reinforced the command with an arch of his brows, but Tilrey didn’t budge._ When you’re threatened, you curl up in a ball and wait for the problem to go away, _Dal had told him once, and he felt himself doing it now._

_He went rigid when the Upstart came close and began touching him. But not until the man’s hand strayed down to his groin did he break free. He staggered toward the safety of the Supervisor, who knew who he was, who his mother was, and how it was acceptable to treat him. “Fir Fernei—”_

_Already halfway out the cell door, Fernei stopped, turned, and said solemnly, “Do you know what kind of trouble you’re in, Tilrey? Fir Makari is offering you a very generous second chance. We’ll talk more shortly, but for now I suggest you demonstrate your willingness to cooperate.”_

_He didn’t wait for a response; the door closed behind him with a final thud. Tilrey dashed toward it, but someone caught him from behind and pinioned his arms—the soldier._

_The Upstart was leering more openly as he said, “You’re very shy. Fresh, I’m guessing?” And then, when Tilrey didn’t answer, “You do know what that means?”_

_“I’m not fresh. I’ve been with a girl.” He whispered the words, standing absolutely still, as if the admission that he’d lost his virginity might make the Upstart lose interest._

_A brief silence, and then they both cracked up. “Not quite what I meant,” said the Upstart. And then, to the soldier, “Fir Magistrate’s going to like this one.”_

If Tilrey had been Dal, he might have kicked Admin Makari in the balls next, he supposed. But he’d been raised to be a good boy, to show respect to his elders and superiors, so he’d stood frozen and let the asshole feel him up—“Just to see what I’m getting,” Makari had assured him—and started learning how to leave his body and feel nothing at all.

The memory brought him to his feet, face hot, just as the door grated open and admitted Fernei.

“Fuck off.” The words emerged before Tilrey could stop them.

The Supervisor was using a cane—older now, and less intimidating, but still the same man who’d turned his back and left that cell eight years ago. “Now, now,” he quavered. “You should know storming and blustering aren’t going to help you.”

“No?” Tilrey crossed his arms; he wasn’t going to confess and beg for mercy this time. “And what makes you think I need your help?”

Behind Fernei, a constable tugged the door shut, leaving them alone. The Supervisor leaned against it as if the prospect of this interview tired him. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you stumbled into that hive of shirkers by accident?”

“Not by accident, no. I was looking for my friend. I’ve been concerned about her.”

“Yes, yes. And I suppose Dal was kind enough to tell you the True Hearth’s password? I have two witnesses from the gathering who heard you use it.”

Tilrey started to speak, but Fernei waved him into silence. “Now, let’s be clear, Tilrey—I don’t care what sort of foolishness you’ve been up to in Redda. Shirking or Dissent or even downright treason, it’s your business as far as I’m concerned. I’m not here to lecture you.”

“No, you’re not.” Tilrey sank back onto the bench, feeling as weary as the Supervisor looked. “I’m not eighteen anymore, and you’re not going to pretend you give a damn about me. You’re going to offer me a deal—my freedom in exchange for Councillor Gádden’s patronage.”

Fernei’s head jutted in a fractional nod. “You’ve learned how these things work.”

_All too well._ “You need a patron in the Council, don’t you, Fernei? Someone to represent your interests, make sure the sector gets its fair share of smoked salmon and ale. Make sure you stay on top.”

“It may sound petty to you, boy, but that’s how—”

“I know.” Tilrey stood up again. “I know it’s nothing personal. I’m sure you always think you’re doing the best thing for the sector, even when you’re selling children.”

Fernei blinked. “I don’t enjoy that part of the job.”

“But you thought _I’d_ enjoy one. Or were you mocking me?”

“I thought you’d enjoy Mal, yes. Most men do. It was a peace offering.” Fernei raised his hands in surrender. “Strutters have needs, desires, whims, and we supply. If your Fir Gádden wants to put an end to such traffic, I welcome that, but he’ll need to offer his support in return. And if he doesn’t . . .”

“Then you call in Int/Sec. Maybe the army.” Tilrey paced to the wall and gave it a half-hearted kick. “You turn me over to them.” He faced the Supervisor again. “You do realize Fir Gádden is on the Int/Sec committee?”

Fernei’s face didn’t change. “I’m well aware that Fir Gádden can pluck you out of danger if he chooses. But your friend—will she be so lucky?”

He pressed his thumb to the door seal. “Take a few hours and think on it, Tilrey. I know you hold a grudge against me, but don’t let that blind you to the best choice. Dal’s a fine woman, full of potential to do her sector proud. I’d hate to see her lose her life to a youthful mistake.”

***

Tilrey was lying in bed in Gersha’s vacation house in the Southern Range, watching snow feather against the dark skylight. Gersha slept beside him, his back to Tilrey, curled into himself.

He reached out to stroke Gersha’s nape, but before he could make contact, Lourisa was suddenly crouched between them, practically sitting on Tilrey’s chest, asking the same question over and over: “What are the coordinates?”

Tilrey remembered them perfectly—44.0506 N, 74.0510 W—but she might wake Gersha, so he tried to shush her. “Is Dal with you? Is she safe?”

Instead of answering, Lourisa just kept repeating, “What are the coordinates?” in that robotic voice until he sat up with a jerk, hoping to throw her off him, and woke.

His shoulders and spine were on fire from lying on the hard bench, and the fluorescent lighting needled into his groggy eyes. With a groan, he swung his feet to the floor, rolled his neck— _ow_ —and looked up to see the door slide open.

_Not that bastard again._ He opened his mouth to insult Supervisor Fernei and closed it when he saw his mother.

“I came as soon as I could.” She wore slippers and a robe, and her red-brown hair was uncombed, sticking up at odd angles like a child’s.

“You’re okay, Rishka? They haven’t hurt you?” Sitting down beside him, she seized both his hands as if he might vanish. The contact was so unexpected that Tilrey almost pulled away.

“Fine.” He accepted the warm pressure of her hands without meeting her eyes. “Did Fernei send you?”

“Of course.” Her voice was tight with anger. “He wants me to pressure you into getting your Councillor to be his patron. He put on his concerned face and told me his constables found you meeting with shirkers.”

_Shit_. Tilrey opened his mouth to say it was all a misunderstanding.

His mother shook her head sharply, silencing him. “It’s safer for both of us if I don’t know whether that’s true or not.” Her gaze wheeled fiercely around the cell, as if to challenge whoever might be surveilling them.

“Why’d you come, then? To tell me to give the old tyrant what he wants—after what he did to us both?”

“No. I’m aware my opinion has no power over you.”

_That’s not true._ He opened his mouth to say it, because she needed to know, but she wasn’t done talking. Her throat worked as she released his hands. “You’re an adult, Rishka. You make your own choices. I’ll do anything in my power to help you, but I will _not_ broker some agreement between Fernei and Councillor Gádden, selling you for the welfare of the sector. That’s almost as bad as what Fernei did to you the first time, when—” She broke off, her eyes filling.

“Mom! It’s okay.” Alarmed by her loss of control, he drew her into a half-hug, awkwardly patting her shoulder. “It’s not like that. No one’s going to sell me this time. If there has to be an agreement, _I’ll_ broker it, because Gersha listens to me. Most of the time, anyway.”

“Listens to you?” Her shoulders lurched. “He’s an Upstart. He kept you from me!”

“No!” It was time to clear up this misconception once and for all, even if it made him look like the world’s shittiest son. “Gersha was actually the one who persuaded me to come back here, because he read your letter. He told me I’d always regret it if I didn’t come to terms with you. I know this may not make sense to you, but he loves me, the way you loved Dad. And—”

He broke off. His mother was practically sobbing, glistening trails on her cheeks. “What is it? You don’t believe me?”

“Why do you need to ‘come to terms’ with me?” She raised wet eyes to him, the lines of her face proud even in her collapse. “Why do you need a Strutter to persuade you to come home? Why do you hate me so much, Rishka? Why wouldn’t you even write me?”

“But I did!” He did a quick inventory of the past eight years in his head, trying to remember the longest he’d gone without writing her. “I didn’t write much sometimes, but I always stayed in touch.”

“No.” His mother’s eyes were tight on his. “Right after you left, when it mattered the most, I heard nothing for a month and twenty-two days. Then I received a handwritten note from the General Magistrate of the whole bleeding Republic in which he explained, with many absurdly polite apologies, that he ‘hadn’t been able to persuade’ you to compose a letter to me. Not wanting me to worry, he’d ended up dictating one, which he swore was an accurate representation of your mental state. That dictated letter, in your handwriting, was also enclosed.”

Something went ice-cold in Tilrey’s chest. “He _told_ you he’d dictated the letter? What was the point of even doing it, then?” A pointless question—Linnett toyed with people for fun.

His mother rubbed her eyes. “Maybe he wanted to be honest. Maybe he wanted to hurt me. I don’t know. Because, you see, if he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known. That letter _sounded_ like you.”

Tilrey remembered taking Linnett’s dictation and finding it almost uncanny how close this was to a letter he might have written. He realized in a detached way that a tear was trickling down his own cheek. “He knew me—Linnett. Very well.”

She went on: “And I kept getting these letters in your handwriting, for years afterward. They all sounded the same—a lot of observations about buildings and the weather, and nothing about your feelings. Cold, formal phrases telling me not to worry, because you were ‘adjusting.’” Her voice broke. “At some point they must have stopped being that man’s dictations and started being real letters from you, but I couldn’t tell. I _couldn’t tell_.”

Her shoulders heaved, and then she was pulling him into a death-grip embrace the way she had when he first arrived. “Why, Rishka? Why couldn’t you just write yourself, from the beginning? Why did I have to parse the meaning behind those horrible sentences written by someone who was . . . who was . . .”

_Fucking you. Hurting you. Changing you._ He closed his eyes tight and pressed his forehead to her shoulder.

“I was ashamed.” He couldn’t say the words out loud, only murmur them into the softness of her robe. “I know how you are, and I—well, I wanted to keep my pride, to be strong, because that’s how you taught me. But I wasn’t strong enough.”

She stroked his back. “Whatever they did to you, you survived it. What’s stronger than that?”

Tilrey lurched away from her. He used his sleeve to wipe the mess off his face. “You don’t know. You look at me and you see the old me—or my dad, or whoever—and that’s not who I am anymore. The reason those letters sounded like me is that Malsha Linnett got inside my head. He figured me out, and then he twisted me into someone new, someone more like him. Why do you think I don’t talk like you anymore? Because I _wanted_ to talk like him. Because I was sick of his friends patting me on the head and saying my accent was cute.”

“Rishka.” Her voice quivered. “You don’t have to explain—”

“No. You need to understand this. Linnett was a father and an uncle and a lover and a lifeline to me, and sometimes a jailer and a torturer, and in my way I loved him. Maybe I still do.” He rubbed his face again, unable to meet her eyes. “I still hear his voice in my fucking head sometimes, and sometimes his advice is _good_.”

“That’s why you wouldn’t come back.” Her voice was oddly calm now. “You wanted me to remember you as you were.”

Tilrey blinked, dimly aware of fresh wetness on his cheeks. “Yeah. And I was right to stay away. I mean, this is a fucking mess, right? You wanted me to marry Dal, and now she’s in a cell, and it’s my fault.”

His mother’s cool hand cupped his cheek. They sat there for a moment; she didn’t lift his face, and he didn’t meet her eyes.

Then she said, “What a fool Fernei was, sending me here to use maternal guilt on you. He doesn’t know you in the least.”

“I _do_ care what you think.” Still he couldn’t look at her.

His mother’s hand withdrew, and she rose in one smooth motion. “I know. You care too much. Enough to keep you away from me, and I don’t want that anymore.”

He looked up then, puzzled, and saw something like resolution curving her mouth, burning in the depths of her eyes. But she only said, “I need you to sit tight and make no concessions until I come back. Can you do that?”

“Dal.” Tilrey swallowed. Why’d he been talking about himself this whole time? “She’s the one who’s really in danger.”

His mother only nodded, as if Dal’s situation were as easily fixed as a mechanical breakdown on the factory floor. “I’ve been administering this sector for as long as you’ve been alive, Rishka. Nothing here surprises me. Let me do what I can to clean up this mess for you—for us. One last time.”


	8. A Proposal

Gersha had discovered that calling anyone in Thurskein was a royal pain. First you had to leave a message with some sort of central operator—voice only. Then if you were lucky, an hour or so later, you got an incoming call from the person you wanted to reach.

He left his initial message at ten in the morning on Tilrey’s third day in the city, after filing his complaint about Supervisor Fernei of Sector Six with City Admin. At about noon, the Thurskein code finally came up on his handheld, and he scrambled for it, managing to grab it without removing his feet from his desk. “Rishka?”

Instead of Tilrey, the screen showed him a svelte middle-aged woman with cropped auburn hair and an arresting gaze. “Fir Councillor? This is Lindtmerán, Angelika. My son isn’t available, so your message was delivered to me.”

Tilrey’s mother? Gersha slid his feet onto the floor and sat up straight, wishing he could be sure nothing was stuck in his teeth.

“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Fir’n Lindtmerán,” he said as warmly as he could. Never mind rank or reasons, he wanted this woman to know he wasn’t a monster, and perhaps even to convince her he was the right companion for her son.

Angelika Lindtmerán looked nothing like Tilrey, all her features spare where his were generous. Physically, he must favor his father. But in her wariness and the pride of her straight posture, Gersha recognized his lover.

“We don’t have time for pleasantries, Fir Councillor,” she said. “My son is in trouble. I need your help.”

Gersha was on his feet before he knew it. “What kind of trouble?”

“With Sector Supervisor Fernei.” She blinked. “From what I understand, Rishka spoke to you about the man’s questionable morals, and the Supervisor learned of it. He’s determined to stop such talk and obtain your patronage, and in the hopes of forcing your hand, he’s placed Tilrey in detention.”

“Detention? How?” With his free hand, Gersha woke his desktop module and clicked over to check on flights to Thurskein. Blood pounded in his ears at the thought of Tilrey locked up again.

“My son was socializing with old friends after curfew. Fernei sent in his constables to arrest the lot of them on the pretext of supposed Dissident activity. You may not realize this, Fir, but it’s easy for high officials here to concoct imaginary shirker plots whenever they find it convenient.”

Gersha could imagine all too well. Karishkov had painted him a vivid picture of the petty tyranny that Supervisors exercised in their sectors when they were sure of support from Redda.

“I’m coming to you,” he said grimly, tapping on his keyboard to reserve a seat. “Today. But I am _not_ giving that corrupt prick Fernei my patronage. He just made the very worst move he could make, and if he thinks I’ll back down, he doesn’t know me.”

A small smile tipped up the corners of Fir’n Lindtmerán’s mouth. “You seem very concerned about my son, Fir.”

“Damn right I am.” Gersha didn’t care anymore about maintaining his dignity with a Laborer; anger and dread were making his heart canter.

But the adrenaline felt good, too. He had power, and now he knew how to use it—how to begin to repay Tilrey for all the meetings he’d attended in Gersha’s stead, all those briefings on dull legislation, all the ingenious schemes the boy had orchestrated on his behalf.

“Nobody’s going to use Rishka to get to me, or hurt him just because they think they can,” he said, his voice lowering to a growl. “I know he’s no shirker, and I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. Tell me, Fir’n Lindtmerán, how would _you_ like to be Supervisor of your sector?”

***

When Pers stepped into the cell, Tilrey nearly laughed. “Oh. Everybody gets their turn with me, I guess.”

Pers had arrived alone, without constable backup. The furtive glance he shot toward one corner of the ceiling made it even clearer he wasn’t authorized to be here.

“I should be able to erase the cams,” he said in a low voice. “Look, I don’t know what you’re involved in back in Redda, and I don’t want to know. But we have to help Dal, Tilrey.”

After his mother’s departure, Tilrey had spent what felt like the whole day alone, pacing and worrying, the monotony broken only by the delivery of a slice of inedible protein loaf. He couldn’t help welcoming Pers’s company, even after the way they’d parted. “I thought you were coming to yell at me and say good riddance.”

“Oh, I’m still pissed at you.” Pers’s brows lowered. “I thought you were better than shirking, and if I’d known, I’d have never . . .” He shuddered, as if to shake the memory of Tilrey’s touch from his body. “But it doesn’t matter what I think, because you’re all high and mighty now, and your Councillor boyfriend’s going to pluck you out of danger. Dal doesn’t have that advantage, though, see?”

Tilrey nodded. His mother’s tone of resolution had calmed him for a while, but it couldn’t stop him from imagining Dal in a cell, Dal before a tribunal, Dal being loaded into the plane that would take her to the Wastes while her large family sobbed inconsolably. And Lourisa—would she give herself up to try to save Dal, if she wasn’t in custody already?

“Then we want the same thing, Persha,” he said. “I’ll do anything I can to have Dal released without charges.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you got her mixed up in this bullshit in the first place!” Pers’s face had reddened, his eyes swimming.

Tilrey opened his mouth to say Dal had already been very mixed up in “this bullshit” before he arrived, then closed it. Better for Pers to think she was the innocent novice. “Dal’s a good person. Headstrong, but not a criminal. We’ll get her out of this, Pers—count on me.”

Pers scowled. “Something’s bothering me, though. You came to the hangar alone—I used the cams to track you. And nobody entered after you did. Which means Dal was already in there.”

Tilrey pulled his feet up on the bench, trying to figure out his story. What if someone else had confessed? “I was looking for a Dissident cell I’d been told about in Redda, that was supposedly using the hobby circle as a cover. When I got there, though, they didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.”

“You’re saying they didn’t admit you specifically because of that password? My video evidence suggests otherwise.”

For the first time, Tilrey was starting to feel his own lies stick to him, the web winding itself too cleverly around his limbs and holding him fast. How was he going to square what he was telling Pers with what he would need to tell Gersha?

Maybe this was it, the moment he’d been waiting for, when he’d tell Gersha the whole truth. _Yes, I got that password from Dissidents in Redda. Yes, I carried a message for them._

But Dartán wouldn’t have approached him if not for Ranek Egil, and he couldn’t blow Egil’s cover without warning him first. Tilrey was annoyed with Egil for telling Dartán about his trip, for pushing him toward a deeper commitment to Dissidence, but he wasn’t _that_ annoyed.

He still shuddered at the idea of sending Skeinshaka to find a new life in Harbour, but Dal had a point. Thurskein was home, it was love and warmth and safety and purpose, but it was also a gigantic prison, something he hadn’t realized until he’d left and returned.

He wasn’t going to convince Pers of that, though. Not today. “Dal’s a good person,” he repeated. “She cares about her sector and her city, just like you do. You can rely on that.”

“Why aren’t you answering my—” Pers broke off as the door grated open. “Shit,” he muttered, straightening his uniform and his posture, his irritation turning to a constable’s professional blankness. “Fir’n Constable Gunrell. Fir’n Lindtmerán. I heard a complaint, and I was just . . .”

He fell silent, walking backward as two constables entered the cell, followed by Tilrey’s mother, followed by—

Tilrey’s heart skipped a beat as he saw what had silenced Pers. Gersha was here, and seeing him in this Thurskein cell was nothing like seeing him in Redda.

The Councillor wore a spotless, snow-white tunic, and he held himself as only a high Upstart can do, his chin up and his fine-boned face impassive, as if he preferred not to take notice of his dingy surroundings. Two more constables brought up his rear, their respectful distance speaking of genuine awe.

Tilrey could see that awe reflected on Pers’s face, too—and, in a more muted way, on his mother’s. The whole thing reminded him of one of those feudal sagas where a god came down to Earth and walked among mortals, meting out justice and resolving disputes, and then disappeared, leaving no footprints in the snow.

The two lead constables parted to let Gersha pass. Knowing too well his lover was no immortal, Tilrey lowered his eyes and did his best to send him a nonverbal message: _Keep this up. Don’t touch me. Don’t let them know you’re human._

Luckily, Gersha had a lifetime of training to fall back on. He stopped a meter from Tilrey and said in a lofty tone, without meeting his eyes, “I am shocked and consternated by this state of affairs, Fir’n Supervisor. This young man is my secretary, and his services are invaluable to me. Release him immediately.”

“Of course, Fir Councillor. At once, Fir Councillor.” Tilrey’s mother gestured crisply to the constable who wore the most insignia on her lapel.

The constable stepped forward, bowed to Gersha, and then said to Tilrey, “You’re free to go, Fir Bronn. The constabulary apologizes profusely for the misunderstanding.” She flicked two fingers at her subordinates, who withdrew.

Tilrey nearly jumped as a hand closed on his arm, but it was only his mother. “No sudden moves,” she muttered as she turned him around.

They followed Gersha back out of the cell in a ridiculously formal procession with the high-ranking constable in the lead—past a white-faced Pers, then past rows of armed constables whose faces displayed various proportions of shock, awe, and envy.

Tilrey barely saw them. The words Gersha had spoken were still ringing in his ears.

The Detention complex was a gray-brown blur, and he was grateful for his mother’s hand competently steering him through the crowd. He kept his head up and played his role, but his mouth was dry.

Not until the three of them and two constable escorts were traveling upward in a lift—a faster lift, clearly reserved for important people—did he find words. “He called you Fir’n Supervisor.”

He pitched the comment for his mother’s ears alone, the way she’d spoken to him earlier. But she answered in a clear, ringing voice: “Fir Fernei is under investigation on corruption charges. In his absence”—she gave a weight to the word that suggested it would be a long absence, perhaps even a permanent one— “I am the acting Supervisor of this sector. Fir Councillor Gádden, acting in concert with Central Admin, thought it best to ensure the sector was not without a leader.”

_You did it. You fucking did it somehow, both of you._ Tilrey wanted to grab Gersha and do a victory dance before giving him a kiss that would leave him gasping and rock-hard. In front of the constables, though, he could only stand there and feel his face redden, not daring even to look in Gersha’s direction.

_He’s NOT a god,_ he almost wanted to shout. Laborers in Redda could be terrible suck-ups, but at least they understood that Upstarts were human beings, even when they swooped in and fixed things with a flick of their fingers.

Things _were_ fixed, though, weren’t they? Wasn’t that the important thing? “Dal?” Tilrey asked under his breath, wondering if he was starting to think like a shirker.

His mother said in her dry, official way, “Fir’n Arno has been cleared of charges resulting from last night’s misunderstanding. I believe she’s waiting for us.”

_Thank god—no, there are no gods. Thank an unfair system that worked in Dal’s favor because we nudged it that way._ “Waiting for us, uh, where?”

“In my new quarters.” And now a smile snuck out from under his mother’s official mask. “On the top floor. Fir Councillor, I understand you’re on your way to the Southern Range, but I would be honored if you would accept my hospitality for an hour.”

“I would be honored to do so, Fir’n Supervisor.” Gersha sounded deeply uncomfortable to Tilrey’s knowing ears. Was he _scared_ of Angelika Lindtmerán?

As they walked down the hall, Tilrey dared to address him in an undertone. “The Southern Range, Fir? I thought you were spending the recess in Redda.”

“Well, you know, since we’re so close.” Gersha cleared his throat. “I thought perhaps, since you were going to leave tomorrow morning anyway, you might like to come with me and spend a few days at the vacation residence. If that suits you, of course.”

“Of course it suits me, Fir.” This painful formality was turning back the clock to when they’d first met. Tilrey nearly laughed—then stared, as a door opened to reveal a penthouse nearly as grand as Fernei’s.

“Shit,” he whispered to his mother. “This is where you live now?”

She waved the constables back down the corridor and led them inside, into the mellow late-afternoon light that flooded through two large, west-facing windows. “I could have stayed down below, but it might have been awkward to govern the sector from there. Oh, there you are, Dalsha. And tea, how lovely. Fir Councillor, please take a seat.”

Dal, who was in the act of pouring from the steaming kettle, nearly dropped it when she caught sight of Gersha. Tilrey could see her taking in the white tunic, the dignified bearing, the handsome face. For an instant she looked almost as starstruck as the crowd downstairs.

He grabbed the kettle from her and poured, then appropriated her hand, picking up a tumbler in his free one, and led her over to Gersha. “Fir Councillor, this is my friend Magdalena Arno.” He passed the tea to Gersha with a bob of his head, feeling more and more like an actor in that stupid stream pod. “She’s my oldest friend.”

Gersha clasped Dal’s hand without rising, playing his own part in the pantomime of status. “It’s a pleasure, Fir’n Arno. Tilrey’s spoken a great deal of you.”

Dal reddened. “He’s talked a lot about you, too, uh, Fir. Just Dal, please.”

Gersha blushed back, breaking character for the first time. “Sit, please, all of you. I don’t feel comfortable with so much ceremony.”

“Sit, Mom.” Tilrey handed his mother a tumbler and coaxed her down on the couch facing Gersha, then settled beside her. Dal perched on the far end of Gersha’s couch with an odd expression on her face, as if repressing an attack of the giggles.

Angelika was still in full ceremony mode. “Fir Councillor, this sector owes you a debt of gratitude. Had you chosen to remain silent about Fir Fernei’s violations of decency, as I’m afraid some of your colleagues might have done, we would still be laboring under morally compromised leadership. I hope I shall prove worthy of the trust that—”

Gersha cut her short, looking deeply awkward. “Fir’n Lindtmerán, please. I’ve flown a long way, I spent that flight convincing the Admin of this sector to rush the paperwork that would force your Fernei into retirement, and I’m exhausted.”

“Of course, Fir Councillor. I apologize. I—”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. Please. All this formality.” Gersha rose abruptly, sloshing his tea. He set the tumbler on a side table, nearly overturning it. Dal still had the repressing-giggles look, but her face went innocently blank when Tilrey met her eyes.

Gersha’s own eyes blazed as if with fear or eagerness, but his brows were tightly drawn. He went on, looking down on them, “It’s just that I don’t need to be thanked, Fir’n Supervisor—may I call you Angelika?”

“Lisha, please, Fir.”

“What I’ve done here feels like the bare minimum required by justice, and I still haven’t accomplished what I came here to do.” Gersha shot a glance at Tilrey and went beet red.

“What more could you possibly want to do, Fir?” Angelika’s question was respectful and probing at once, and Tilrey found himself admiring her political acumen.

The nudge worked on Gersha. Clearly fighting through his embarrassment, he walked over, stiff-legged, and held out both hands to Tilrey. “This is extremely awkward. But I think your mother already has an inkling of my feelings toward you.”

What the fuck was Gersha up to? Tilrey clasped his lover’s outstretched hands and stood, as was only polite in such a situation. He was glad he couldn’t see Dal’s expression from here.

Gersha’s fingers were warm and trembling, and his white collar was starting to darken with sweat. Speaking over Tilrey’s shoulder now, he said, “I’m addressing you, Fir’n—Lisha—because your son already knows my heart. I want to make sure you do, too. In your position, it may be natural to assume I have no serious intentions toward him.”

“Gersha.” Tilrey’s face was burning. “You don’t have to—”

“No, love, I think I do.” Gersha’s fingers tightened as he turned to Angelika again. “So—well, I’m not good at these declarations, but I want you to know this is not temporary or merely convenient for me. I’ll have a place in my life for Rishka as long as he’ll have me—whatever kind of place he wants. And I know I’m embarrassing him now, and he’ll probably never forgive me, but I would never forgive _myself_ if I left you worried that I was toying with your son or that I didn’t have the greatest concern for his welfare and his future.”

“Verdant hells, Gersha!” Tilrey knew he should be outraged by this whole display—he _was_ outraged—but tears were rising in his eyes, and he couldn’t seem to release Gersha’s hands. “She doesn’t need to know all that!”

“You’re wrong, Rishka.” His mother sounded almost smug, as if she’d finally gotten what she’d wanted this whole time. “You told me he cared for you, but he is an Upstart, and things are what they are, so I needed to hear it from him. Forgive me for that. I have a question, though, Fir Councillor.”

“Anything.” Gersha squeezed Tilrey’s hands, clearly too mortified to look at him. “And please, call me Gersha.”

“I would be honored to. You seem to want to spend your life with my son. Tell me, if he chose to marry and start a family, would you stand in the way?”

“ _Mom_.” Tilrey wasn’t sure which of them he was more furious at, but the fury was all mixed up with a tenderness that made it impossible to pull himself free. “I told you to drop that. Dal doesn’t want to marry me!”

“I know, Rishka. But one day you may find someone you do want to marry, someone you legally _could_ marry, and then—”

“I would not object,” Gersha said in a low voice. He looked like a chastised child now, with his eyes down and the dark curls creeping over his forehead. “If he wanted to marry, I wouldn’t go mad with jealousy and use my power against him, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I would hope still to have a place in Tilrey’s life. But, as I said, that would be his choice. That will always be his choice.”

Tilrey finally found the will to yank his hands free. “You’re right. I’m never going to forgive you for this. How can you two discuss me like I’m not here?”

Gersha raised his eyes at last, wild and wet and sea-green, full of apology and defiance at once. “I’m so sorry, love. I had to _tell_ her. I couldn’t let her think—”

“That you were like the others. I know.” Because other Upstarts had hurt him, yeah, but so fucking what; he didn’t need any absurd promises of eternal love, to set his mother’s mind at rest or for any other reason. “I’m not somebody you came along and saved. I was doing just fine. You’ve _always_ been the sentimental one.”

“I know.” Gersha mouthed the words.

“So you decide to come here and practically propose like somebody in a saga. Very nice.”

“If it’s a proposal, I think you need to kiss,” Dal said.

Tilrey shot a murderous glance at her. “Do _not_ make fun of me.”

“I’m not.” Indeed, she wasn’t cracking a smile. “The Fir just looks like he might sink through the floor if you don’t kiss him right now.”

Tilrey scowled at her, at both of them. “I really won’t forgive him.”

Then he pulled Gersha to him, almost roughly, and cupped his lover’s cheek. He gave his attention to the twisted, apprehensive mouth, turning gentler now, and kissed the tension from it, easing the lips apart with his tongue. Gersha sighed and closed his eyes and let his mouth fall open, his whole body melting as if he expected Tilrey to hold him up.

For an endless moment, there was nothing but warmth on warmth, Gersha opening to him and vice versa, and it was every bit as absurd as that scene in the stream, but Tilrey _was_ holding Gersha up now and he couldn’t seem to stop.

Soon enough, they came apart. When Tilrey managed to look at anything but Gersha again, his mother was busying herself fetching rice cakes, eyes tactfully averted. Dal’s whole face was lit by a radiant grin, but she only said, “The tea’s getting cold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, everybody, and thanks for reading! So, at some point I decided I wanted this chapter to get very Jane Austen with Gersha as Mr. Darcy, and then I felt like I had to problematize the trope, and this is the result of both those feelings happening at once. :)


	9. Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again with the very fluffy fluff. :) I'll try to post the last chapter soon, since it's short. Thanks for reading!

The rest of the tea party was only marginally less embarrassing. Angelika and Dal dominated the conversation, grilling Gersha about his family, his personal history, how he and Tilrey had met, the things Tilrey did for him in the Sector, and even what they did for fun.

Several times, Tilrey was tempted to shut down the interrogation, but Gersha didn’t seem to mind it, and he found graceful answers to questions that could have been embarrassing. (How had they met? “A mutual acquaintance brought us together.” What did they do for fun? “We really enjoy hiking. Oh, and he reads ancient English aloud to me.”)

The two women’s attentiveness was intense but not unfriendly, and soon the Councillor actually appeared to be enjoying himself. He smiled and blushed charmingly as Dal teased him about the “geeky obsession with the Tangle” that he and Tilrey shared, which she declared a sign that the two of them were destined for each other.

After an hour or so, Gersha left the room to attend to their travel arrangements. While Angelika washed up, Tilrey took the occasion to lecture Dal on her manners: “You know, no Laborer in Redda would talk to a Councillor the way you just did. Well, maybe my friend Bror. But he’s not scared of anybody.”

“Neither am I. And you’re the one who said you’d never forgive him!”

“That’s different.”

“Oh, I bet Gersha’s used to getting an earful from you. From the little I’ve seen, you’re less shy with him than you were with me when we were together.”

“Really?” He felt a blush steal across his face. “Maybe I have grown up.”

“I’ll say you have.” Her cocky look faded as she sank down beside him, her eyes intent. “Before he comes back, Tilrey—the coordinates?”

It was Tilrey’s dream in the cell all over again. “Is Lourisa okay?” he asked, stalling.

“The constables never even took her in. She knew a way out—plus, it was just a ‘misunderstanding,’ remember?”

Tilrey shot a meaningful glance toward his mother in the kitchen. “We shouldn’t . . .”

“Actually, we can. Lisha knows.”

“What?” The whole day was starting to feel like a fever dream. “But she can’t—”

Angelika turned off the tap and began drying, her expression just a touch smug again. “Can’t what? Can’t care about the welfare of my sector?”

“Look, the Supervisors always know.” Dal moved in so close he felt her breath on his face. “Fernei wasn’t stupid. He knew what Lourisa was doing in Records. He knew why we were meeting in that hangar.”

“He _knew_? And didn’t stop it?” Ideology aside, he couldn’t imagine Fernei not controlling everything that happened in his sector, or trying to.

“Tilrey, you _can’t_ stop shirking. Fernei just looked the other way and kept his hands clean. If we wanted to ship a few troublemakers out of his sector, he didn’t object. It’s only when someone starts thieving or sabotaging that a Supervisor calls in the army, and we’re not stupid enough to do that. Not anymore.”

“But . . .” Tilrey didn’t dare look at his mother. Would she knowingly let shirkers operate in her sector, plotting to smuggle people to Harbour? It seemed impossible. “Fernei was corrupt,” he pointed out. “He didn’t care about the big picture, about consequences.”

When he did look up, they were both staring at him. Dal said, “Lisha knows things need to change, Tilrey. She changed because of _you_ , don’t you see? Because of what they did to you.”

She said it casually, as if being a shirker weren’t a potential death sentence. But when Tilrey met his mother’s eyes, he saw she was all too aware.

“I intend to clean up the corruption of Sector Six,” she said briskly. “Sex trafficking, smuggling, gangs, sap abuse . . . everything that _harms_ our people. Nothing that could help them.”

“Mom.” He couldn’t finish the sentence, didn’t want to say it out loud— _You’re with them. You’re helping them._ How had she, so upright and uptight, reached the point of committing herself to Dissidence before he had? Maybe living with Upstarts really had made him like them.

“Tilrey,” Dal said. “He’ll be back any minute.”

Angelika hung up the dish towel. “Don’t badger him, Dal. It’s his choice.” And she slipped out of the room, giving them privacy—and herself plausible deniability, Tilrey realized.

He almost wished he’d forgotten those damned coordinates, but they were burned into his brain. He wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing, but who could ever be sure?

He bent until his lips nearly touched Dal’s ear, remembering how it felt to kiss her in the days when he was madly in love with her—the vertigo, the feverishness. “Better write this down,” he said. “44.0506 N, 74.0510 W.”

***

As they reached the threshold of the vacation house, Tilrey joked, “Shouldn’t you carry me over? Isn’t that Tangle custom?”

Gersha gave him a sharp look. “I thought you were never going to forgive me for talking that way.”

On the helicopter ride over, they hadn’t been able to converse, and maybe they were both a little grateful for that. Walking through the purple twilight, though, under the pines, with snow crunching under their feet, Tilrey had felt their old comfort with each other creep back.

“I may forgive you eventually,” he said playfully, “if you treat me as befits someone you plighted your troth to.”

Gersha sized him up with a sly smile. “I’m not sure I could lift your muscle-bound frame.”

“Fine, I’ll do the work.” And Tilrey scooped up Gersha, ignoring his protests, and made a valiant effort to carry him inside, which ended with them collapsed in a tangle of limbs in the coldroom, laughing.

Gersha, who’d landed on top, peeled off his gloves and interlaced their fingers. “So, seriously, you will forgive me? Maybe? Eventually?”

“You numbskull, I already have. Let’s just never mention it again.” _And I won’t mention that I committed high treason today._

Gersha’s familiar weight felt good on top of Tilrey. He told himself he wasn’t any less of a Skeinsha or a Laborer for feeling this way about an Upstart—even though the way Gersha had marched into the city in his luminous white tunic and solved everything had been way too easy.

Gersha gave Tilrey a shy peck on the lips, then tweaked a lock of greasy hair off his forehead. “I can’t believe you were in that miserable hole all night. You deserve a nice long, hot bath, and then . . .” He tried to wink suavely, but ended up just blushing.

“And then _you_ deserve a treat, Fir.” Tilrey’s hand snuck up to cup the curve of Gersha’s ass. “All that hassle and paperwork you did . . .”

_It shouldn’t have been that easy._

Gersha buried his face against Tilrey’s collarbone. “No, after last night and what that damned Supervisor tried to do to you, _you’re_ the one who deserves to be treated.”

“We’ll just have to fight over who gets to treat whom, love. Better close the door before we both freeze.”

***

In the end, there was no fighting. After the bath, they were both too tired from the day’s travails to do much besides hold each other.

Tilrey drew Gersha inside his robe, against the humid warmth of his chest, and rested his chin on the crown of his Councillor’s head. Gersha’s arms eased around his waist, pulling him so close they could feel the rise and fall of each other’s breathing.

“You were magnificent,” Tilrey said into the soft black hair. “When you swept into that detention block, it was like something from a novel or a stream. Did you choose that tunic on purpose?”

Gersha shook his head. “Didn’t stop to change my clothes. The whole thing was embarrassing. I felt a bit of a fool.”

“Well, you didn’t look like one, sweetheart.” He kissed Gersha’s curls, then gazed up at the dark skylight, where flakes were whirling and slapping the glass.

He wanted to apologize for making a mess of things and leading Pers straight to the Dissidents, which had necessitated Gersha’s intervention. But he couldn’t do that without admitting that Dal and the rest _were_ Dissidents, which would mean telling Gersha that Angelika was tolerating—even fostering—a cell in her sector.

“The way they all looked at me.” Gersha’s voice was sleepy, thoughtful. “It was like I was an idea come to life, not a man, and I didn’t feel quite right about any of it. The way I fixed things—I mean, that Fernei was a piece of work, and I have the utmost respect for Lisha, but shouldn’t the sector citizens have some say in who governs them?”

_Yes, they should._ Tilrey was sorely tempted to say it aloud, but he let Gersha’s words hang in the air instead. Let the idea take root in the Councillor’s mind.

Telling all was too much to risk, and Egil was right. Gersha wasn’t ready to come on board—not yet. But that might change.

If Tilrey couldn’t confess everything he’d done in Thurskein, he could at least confess a piece. He threaded his fingers through Gersha’s hair. “I need to tell you something, love. While I was there, I went to bed with an old friend of mine. I want you to know that, but I also want you to know it didn’t mean anything. It was just fun and—well, it felt right at the time. It’s hard to explain.”

Gersha’s shoulders had stiffened when Tilrey made the admission, but now they began to loosen again. Tilrey could feel his lover doing his best to take the information in stride.

“It’s okay,” he murmured into Tilrey’s chest. “I mean, we’ve talked about this, right? You don’t belong to me. You can sleep with anyone you like, any time you like.”

This time had been different, though, and Tilrey had a feeling Gersha could tell. Fucking an old friend wasn’t like obliging Councillor Ekorin in exchange for a vote, or enjoying Besha together.

“And so can you, love,” he pointed out. “I mean, obviously you can do what you like—you’re a Councillor—but if you want to go to someone else’s bed, for whatever reason, I won’t be offended.”

Gersha sighed. He rolled sideways, into the welcoming curve of Tilrey’s arm, and traced spirals on Tilrey’s abdomen with his fingertips.

“When I met you,” he said after a moment, “I’d already given up on the idea of ever having another person’s companionship. I was attracted to people sometimes, but it never felt . . . right. It was different with you; you opened me up. You made me feel safe. And so, for me, I think that’s it. Just you.”

The simplicity of the declaration made Tilrey’s breath catch. “What about Besha?” he asked, trying to sound indifferent. “You seem to like fucking him.”

Gersha raised his head to meet Tilrey’s eyes, his own wide and soft with trust. “I like him, but only _with_ you. I don’t mind seeing the two of you together anymore, because he adores you the way you deserve to be adored. If it weren’t for you, though, I wouldn’t want Besha, ever. When I see him in the Council chamber, I barely notice him. It’s you, Rishka.”

Hearing this, Tilrey wanted to kiss Gersha breathless, to nuzzle his neck, to whisper sweet reassurances in his ear. _I love you, too. I do. Truly. But . . ._

But he wasn’t sure he could love anyone in the pure and total way Gersha had just described. He was too accustomed to separating his body and mind and using the first as a tool to attain the second’s ends. Then there were the times when his body asserted its own needs and demanded to be pleasured without emotional attachment, or to be hurt.

“I love you.” Tilrey cleared his throat as his voice failed. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I doubt I ever will again. But . . .”

_But I have secrets._

Gersha kissed the soft border of Tilrey’s armpit. “I understand,” he said. “I think. We’ve lived very different lives, you and I. I had the power to shield myself from anything that might hurt me, to live in a safe, dull bubble. And I did, until you came along and coaxed me out of it. You—well, you didn’t have that power over your circumstances.”

Pride bristled in Tilrey, then settled again. Gersha knew him too well to pity him. “I suppose I had to make my own power,” he said, smiling as if it weren’t the bitter truth. “And part of that is the power to say that wherever I go, love, I’ll always come back to you. Only you. Promise.”

Then he rolled over, deposited Gersha tenderly on the bed, and gave his full attention to kissing and adoring and tantalizing his lover until there was no room for doubt about anyone’s feelings.


	10. The Stakes

Tilrey’s next scheduled meeting with Ranek Egil was weeks away, but he had a few questions he wanted to ask right now. Also a bit of a rant about Egil’s insisting on keeping him on need-to-know status while turning around and sharing his personal information with Dissidents.

Now that he’d delivered the message, that had to change. He was a fully committed participant in . . . what, exactly? If the overarching plan started with smuggling Skeinshaka one by one to those coordinates in Harbour, where did it end?

It wasn’t safe to confront Egil at his office in the Sector; they shouldn’t be seen together except in Gersha’s company. His first day back at work, Tilrey went to the gym at five and stopped afterward at the hydration kiosk.

Mirella, the girl who usually coordinated his meetings with Egil, was busy whipping up kale smoothies, her long, glossy braid bouncing over one shoulder. Once the other customers were gone, she asked, “Usual?” raising a black brow.

Tilrey leaned across the counter. “Tell your contact to set up a meet within the next ten-day. I’m not waiting any longer.”

He expected Mirella to argue, but she nodded, her face impassive as stone. A few minutes later, she set a to-go cup full of thick green liquid in front of him. “There.”

“Really?” She couldn’t have already arranged a meeting.

Her eyes bored into him, but betrayed nothing. “Be careful. It’s slippery on the tram platform.”

Taking this as a warning to be extra wary of cams, Tilrey cradled the cup in his gloved hand all the way home, sipping from it and trying to ignore his impatience. Once he was safe in the coldroom of Gersha’s apartment, he raised the cup over his head and read the message painstakingly spelled out in tiny letters around the inner rim:

_Things have changed. You’re safe, but it’s up to you to keep it burning, and now you know the stakes. And where to find me. I.D._

Irin Dartán. But what right did he have to speak for Egil? What had changed?

Questions whirled in Tilrey’s head as he removed his outergear, went inside, and ran the kitchen tap over the message till the ink bled out. He was so preoccupied he almost walked past Gersha without noticing him.

Then he realized Gersha was home too early. He was curled up on the couch with a tablet in his lap, and something was wrong with the set of his shoulders. When Tilrey flopped down beside him, the Councillor looked up with glassy, red-rimmed eyes.

“What’s happened, love?” Forgetting his own problems, Tilrey rested a steadying hand on his Councillor’s shoulder and drew Gersha toward him. “Was Verán being an asshole again?”

Instead of melting against him, Gersha stared into space. An icy fist clenched in Tilrey’s chest. _What if he knows?_ “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

Gersha shook himself as if waking from a trance. “It’s my friend—Ranek.”

Tilrey’s muscles turned to jelly; it was all he could do to keep his face and voice calm. “The interrogator? What about him?”

“A ten-day ago . . .” Gersha’s mouth worked, his fists clenching and loosening, as if he were trying to grind the news out of existence. “It doesn’t seem real, but it’s already over. Int/Sec arrested him for Dissidence.”

Understanding scythed through Tilrey like a cold wind, leaving him upright but lightheaded. _Things have changed_.

Who had betrayed Ranek Egil? Perhaps someone inside Int/Sec, a too-observant colleague. Perhaps Dartán—but no, they’d been allies. And what if Egil had given them up?

Gersha was still talking. “I only just found out. They made him disappear. It’s buried in an internal Int/Sec bulletin; only his family’s been notified. But they’ve already—” His mouth twisted again. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with this. It’s classified, and anyway you didn’t like Ranek. You have no reason to, he hurt you, he—”

“Slow down.” Tilrey patted Gersha’s arm, trying to keep his own expression stable and reassuring. “You’re upset, love. Tell me whatever you need to.”

“They exiled him, Rishka. Yesterday. There’s video proof, and I watched it, I—”

And then he was in Tilrey’s arms, his face wet against Tilrey’s collarbone, his words turned to an inchoate stream: “I shouldn’t care. I know that. If he was a rotten apple, he needed to be thrown out, and that’s that. But it doesn’t make sense to me, Rishka, none at all. It feels like a mistake, and I shouldn’t ask questions, but he was my oldest friend, and I—”

“Shh, love.” Tilrey rubbed Gersha’s back, breathing evenly so as not to betray his own trembling. “You’ve had a terrible shock, and you need to let yourself feel it. I’m having trouble believing it myself.”

“You never saw a hint of it? I didn’t miss something?”

_I knew him better than you did._ But Tilrey didn’t yet have the words to explain that human beings with doubts weren’t “rotten apples.” In Gersha’s mind, an uncrossable line separated “reforming” the system from resisting it. Dissidence was a terrifying, antisocial act—an embrace of chaos. Tilrey had believed that once, too.

“Fir Egil always seemed upright to me.” The words were flat and fake, but what else could he say? Maybe Gersha’s quick mind would brood on this. Maybe, over time, he would work things out on his own.

They went on that way, Gersha shuddering and muttering while Tilrey rocked and soothed him. The Councillor appeared to be trying to talk himself out of grieving for a traitor; repressing “improper” emotions was one of the parts of his high-Upstart upbringing that Tilrey found the most baffling.

Gazing out the window over Gersha’s shoulder, where snow gusted against the opposite gray stone façade, he wondered about Egil’s interrogation. Had Int/Sec put Ranek in a box or kept him alone in the dark, the way he’d done to Tilrey? Worse? And once they’d done all that, had he talked?

“Whatever else Egil was, he was still your friend,” he said, stroking Gersha’s curls.

_You’re safe, but it’s up to you to keep it burning._ Was that Dartán’s way of reassuring Tilrey that Egil hadn’t named either of them? Perhaps so; if anyone knew how to resist Int/Sec’s tricks, it was a trained interrogator. Anyway, if Egil had named them as accomplices, they’d probably both be in cells by now.

But now—what now? _You understand the stakes._

Dartán must know Tilrey had delivered his message. He seemed to think Tilrey was ready to pick up where Egil had left off, working for the resistance from the heart of the government itself.

It scared the shit out of him. But if his mother, Dal, and Lourisa were working for the True Hearth behind the prison walls of ’Skein, risking their positions and their lives, surely he could do it here, safe in a Councillor’s arms.

Tilrey walked Gersha into the bedroom, eased him out of his restrictive work clothes, brought him tea. He convinced Gersha that no, he should not spend the rest of the evening working; he needed to rest. He needed to grieve.

“I want to watch it again.” Gersha wasn’t shedding actual tears, but his eyes burned feverishly. “The video. I need to see it.”

“Are you sure, love?” Tilrey went in the other room and fetched the tablet.

He remembered how he’d felt when they told him Linnett had been exiled—horrified, disbelieving, needing confirmation the same way Gersha did. There’d been no video in that case, though, because Linnett hadn’t been “exiled” at all, or only officially speaking. He’d stolen a plane and pilot and fled to Harbour.

What if Egil . . .? But no, it wasn’t possible.

On the bed, they watched the clip together, Gersha’s head resting on Tilrey’s shoulder. It was only about thirty seconds long.

The cameraperson sat inside a helicopter as it touched down on a featureless snowfield, whipped by sheets of white. A hatch opened. A man’s back moved past the camera as he slid or was pushed out.

Standing outside in his pathetically inadequate parka and boots, struggling against the storm wind, the man veered round to look back at the helicopter.

They both recognized Ranek’s lean brown face. What wasn’t so expected was the jaunty grin he shot at the camera. Tilrey drew in his breath sharply and felt Gersha do the same.

“Brave to the last,” Gersha whispered. “Whatever he did, that’s the Ranek I know. May his last moment be bright.”

“May his last moment be bright,” Tilrey repeated automatically.

He wondered if this really was Ranek’s last moment, or even close. If the True Hearth could smuggle people to Harbour, then he could dare to hope that grin was more than a dead man’s gesture of defiance. It might be a promise to return.

Meanwhile, it was up to Tilrey to keep the hearth burning. He had no choice now.

In the last two seconds of the clip, Ranek turned away from the camera again, toward the immensity of life beyond the warmth and walls of Oslov. He walked into the whiteness of the Wastes without a single look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for this trip! Thank you so much to everyone who came along for the ride. Your kudos and comments mean the world. <3
> 
> I'm planning a "Trip to Harbour," but first I want to write a couple shorter stories to set up some stuff. Updates are also [on Tumblr](https://welcome-to-oslov.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Btw, the coordinates of the Harbour site to which the True Hearth wants to smuggle people are in Tahawus, NY, which is a ghost town in the Adirondack Park. It's pretty desolate even pre-Unraveling.

**Author's Note:**

> This story won't be as sexy as some of the past ones, mainly because Tilrey and Gersha are apart for most of it. The ending, however, will be shameless fluff. :) I may post some short sexier stories in between chapters of this if I get inspired. Thanks for reading! <3


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